Uncontrollable
by sweetprincipale
Summary: Set during S. 4"Where the Wild Things Are". Buffy and Spike end up being trapped in the Lowell House during the peak of the sexually driven "manifestation." Short Smutty Spuffy. Something not too heavy, just read and enjoy. Rated M- Reviews Welcomed. Sunnydale Memorial Awards Round 26 Winner: Best Conventional Pairing, Best Ep. Re-Write, Runner up: Best Mature Spuffy, Best Series.
1. Chapter 1

Uncontrollable

by Sweetprincipale

_Author's notes: Set during Season Four, basically an episode re-write of Where the Wild Things Are. For the sake of the piece, I played with some of the settings and events, but not the main feature of the plot._

_Short, smutty,Spuffy, with hints of deeper emotion. I needed a break from my big pieces. _

_Smut happens next chapter- don't worry. _

_Please read and review!_

_Direct quotes from songs or shows are obviously not mine, but owned by the talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part I

Music blared from the Lowell House. Laughing, half-drunk students stumbled in and out through the doors and sprawled across couches and on the patio of the fraternity, most of them kissing or cuddling sloppily, oddly enough, most of them with someone they'd just met that night at the party.

"So this is the college life." Xander looked around appreciatively, draping one arm over Willow and one over Buffy. "I could do this."

"There's the going to class part." Willow reminded him.

"Oh. Darn it, I knew I was forgetting something." He snapped his fingers and pulled an exaggeratedly comical face.

"Still trying to get over the fact that Anya isn't here, huh?" Willow hit the nail on the head.

"Willow- I am trying to act happy and carefree. Play along." Xander said firmly. "And that was totally Anya-like. Brining that up, even though it wasn't exactly the right time. God, I miss her!" Xander chugged a beer, and wiped his mouth.

Tara tried to offer some comfort. "Sh-she just needed to cool off. She hasn't dated in a long time and sh-she's probably not used t-to having spats."

"You think?" Xander asked hopefully.

"I'm sure." Tara smiled and Willow nodded. "Right, Buffy? Buffy?"

"Yeah..." Buffy answered in a dreamy voice. Her eyes, and apparently mind, were not with her companions. They were trained on the tall, wide shouldered man ensconced in a circle of similarly clean cut, straight-spined men. _I wonder if Riley's up for another quickie? Or maybe a longie. Is that a term? It should so be a term..._

"Did you hear what Tara said?" Willow nudged Buffy. She didn't like when people ignored Tara. Tara was so special, and soft spoken. Smart and powerful, but quietly so. She shouldn't have to shout about it, people should just notice, respect her subtle strength, the same way they respected powers in nature. "Buffy?"

"Totally." Buffy nodded, still keeping her eyes locked on Riley as he laughed with his men. Literally his men, he was the squad leader of a group of demon hunters who all posed as fraternity brothers living in the Lowell House, while really they were Initiative soldiers who worked on a demon hunting operation from under the underground lab built below the fraternity._ How sexy is that? My boyfriend, the demon hunter. Okay, so I'm the Slayer and I can whoop his ass, but still- my boyfriend the demon hunter. Yummy._

Willow was about to get mildly piqued at her bestest best friend for ignoring her new best friend, her special sort of new best friend, but Tara giggled and shook her head. Xander jerked his chin towards the object of Buffy's affections.

"Did I mention that at my new job as ice cream salesman is allowing me to give free fudge ripple to my friends for life?" Xander said with a perfectly serious face, addressing Buffy.

"That's nice." She smiled vacantly.

"Oh, oh-hey, Buffy, this might be a good time to mention that someone, so not me, spilled something purply on your new peasant top which I would never borrow without asking. Still love me?" Willow asked with a hopeful, hesitant lilt in her voice.

"Uh-huh." Buffy licked her lips, finally catching Riley's eye. Then she blinked. "Huh? What about my peasant top?"

"Nothing!" Willow yelped guiltily.

"Xander was just talking about Anya." Tara covered quickly.

"Clothes penetrate the haze chocolate does not." Xander made a mumbled mental note.

"Say what?" Buffy demanded.

"I miss Anya. And I'm mad at her. And I'm feeling really glad a certain ex-vengeance demon doesn't have her demon-y powers right now."

* * *

><p>Anya walked up to the fraternity with Spike, her drinking and bitching about the "lack of evil and unfairness of love" partner for the last hour. She was unknowingly echoing Xander's thoughts. "I miss those powers."<p>

"I know. I know what you mean." Spike sighed. "Look at this lot. Few weeks ago and any one of them would have been supper." He gestured to the milling men on the porch.

"Any unfaithful frat boy would have been eviscerated and being eaten by crows." Anya mourned.

"These boys look vaguely familiar." Spike squinted at one as they passed in the doorway. "I know these guys from somewhere."

"Initiative soldiers, they live here. Experiments happen in the lab under the house." Anya replied casually, ignoring Spike's sudden furious scowl. "It's where they kept you, put in your chip. Let's have fun!" She smiled brightly. "Oh. You're not wearing a let's have fun face."

"No, I'm wearin' my 'I can't believe you're so stupid' face! What are you doing? You brought me _here_?" Spike hissed

"Anya? What are you doing?" Xander caught sight of his girlfriend, and his tone was happy and surprised- at first. Until she turned, and the guy beside her turned as well. Spike? Holy crap, Anya was bringing Spike to parties? "You brought _him _here?" Xander asked in angry incredulousness.

Spike chimed in. "That's what I said! Only I hit the 'here' part."

"Anya, this is crazy. We had a little fight. It just means that we have to work our way through some stuff. It doesn't mean that we rebound with the evil undead.

"Oi!" Spike gave him an offended glare that was no match for Anya's furious one. "And what have we been doing with him anyway?" Xander asked suspiciously.

Spike grinned, and lowered his eyebrows in a mocking appraisal. "Oh, who's the puffed-up manly man? All splotchy and possessive." He sauntered to Xander and looked him over.

"It's not very convincing, is it?" Anya sighed in a woeful voice.

"Yeah. I see now what you said about him earlier." He gave Xander another long look up and down. "No follow-through."

Xander took a step back and called loudly in a falsely cheery voice. "Hey! What a surprise! _Hostile __Seventeen_!" He met Spike's suddenly panicked eyes and ignored the shushing gesture he was giving him. "Can I get you a drink, _Hostile __Seventeen_?"

Spike looked around anxiously and Xander felt a momentary burst of triumph. Until his girlfriend, sounding mildly annoyed, defended the jerk.

"Xander, stop."

Once he realized no one aside from Xander was paying any attention to him, Spike regained his confident, "I don't give a damn" attitude. "Pfft! Well, maybe some fun to be had in the lion's den after all. You two keep scraping. I'll find the liquor." He walked off, whistling leaving the spatting couple.

"Anya. What are you doing with him?" Xander reached for her shoulders, face troubled.

"We didn't have sex, if that's what you mean. That's all I do now, not have sex." She muttered angrily, squirming away.

"You're overreacting. We had a fight. But see, it's okay. It's normal." Xander soothed.

"Yes. The normal part of the ending a relationship right before the vengeance begins."

"Right. No! Vengeance? Vengeance bad, Honey."

"Relax, I'm not gonna do it. And don't call me 'Honey'. I'm just trying to tell you that we have nothing in common besides both of us liking your penis. And now I don't even have that! So I get to say when it's done. And it's done."

"Okay, you know what? You don't deserve to be the one to walk away from this. I've put up with a hell of a lot from you ... much of that in the last minute ... and if anyone gets to be the one to leave, it's _me_." Xander turned and began to walk away, not believing things could go so wrong, so quickly. Everyone else at the party was having a blast. It was just one step away from a Roman orgy if you looked around. And he'd thought he finally found his girl, his own little snuggle bunny-_ no, not bunny, she hates bunnies,_ but his own little snuggle kitty to have on his arm in front of the jocks and preps and everyone. And he was ending it over taking a night off from sex. And other stupid stuff.

"You're leaving _me_?" Anya sounded wounded and disbelieving.

He sighed. "Yes. I am"

"Where are you going?" Her heart twisted.

"To enjoy the party." _Like I ever could, now that you're not happy beside me._

"Well then, then I'm staying too! T-to show you how much I'm not bothered by you having fun! Because I'll be having more fun!" She shouted desperately as they headed off in different directions. Tears were prickling her eyes and her voice sounded strained.

"I'm having fun already!" Xander lied, raising a beer that he quickly snagged.

"Me too! Woo hoo!" She made a miserable face, and both of them abruptly turned away.

"Looks like the goal is open for the rebound." A soft, smug chuckle reached Xander's ear, and he caught a flash of black leather disappearing around the corner.

"That does it!" Xander stormed off, drawing Willow and Tara's eyes.

"Uh-oh. Trouble."

"I'll get Xander, you get Buffy." Willow sighed and left the stairs. Darn. She and Tara had been bonding and she'd just been about to get to the light affectionate touching stage. Stupid Anya-ness.

* * *

><p>"Buffy? Buffy?" Tara was fire engine red at interrupting what she <em>really<em>didn't feel comfortable seeing. Buffy and Riley were pressed against the door of his room, kissing and groping as both of them simultaneously were trying to go for the doorknob.

"She's busy." Riley finally got the door open, lust absolutely consuming him.

"Kind of important. I'm s-so sorry." Tara insisted weakly.

Buffy couldn't think straight. The closer she got to the door of his room, the more she'd felt her self slipping out of control. It had been happening all day. All she could do was think of him and imagine doing things with him. Now, here, she was desperate. Part of her brain registered that she was never "desperate". She wasn't "horny". She liked love and trust and some deep bond. She had no idea why she was suddenly turning into Playboy Buffy, ready to screw her boyfriend's brains out practically in public, in a house full of people. For a second she was mortified, but then the lusty fiery feeling in the pit of her stomach returned. "Why?" She managed to ask Tara.

"Uh- Xander, Anya, Spike issue." She whispered nervously. Buffy's aura wasn't right. In fact- none of the couples she saw around here tonight had the right auras. They weren't clear. They were murky, the right color, but like looking at it through a frosted lens. "Just c-come check and see if you need to prevent a war."

"Spike's here?_Here_?" Buffy shook her head.

"Isn't he a-" Riley's lust filled mind was only responding to one thing other than his hot little girlfriend, and that was the threat of HSTs.

"Yeah, but he helps out sometimes." Buffy replied before he could raise the alarm and send commandos swarming all over the place. She didn't want to be distracted, but she felt some odd sort of responsibility for the vampire in question, so she supposed she might have to be. But only for a minute. She could handle Spike super fast and get back to Riley. She shook her head foggily and pushed away form Riley. The farther away she got from him, the better she could focus.

"Well, tell them to deal with it without you." Riley grabbed her elbow.

"Just let me see if he's done something bad enough for me to make him go 'poof'." Buffy tugged free.

"He exists. Isn't that enough?" Riley asked bitterly. He'd never really understood why Buffy didn't just stake that jerk. Or her ex-jerk, for that matter. Ughh. Just the thought of inter-species kissing made him want to hurl.

Buffy was spared answering that fundamentally tricky question, which she was still debating about herself, by the appearance of two of Riley's friends.

"RY! Ry, somethin' bad is happenin' with the house, man!" Forrest and Graham joined Tara in their plea for attention from the couple.

"Huh? What house? What do you -" Screams and the ominous sound of shattered glass erupted from downstairs. "Shit."

"Pretty much." Graham beckoned them down the stairs.

"I'll meet you right back here." Buffy reluctantly let go of Riley's hand.

"Okay, right here." Riley kissed her hungrily.

"Soon." Buffy tried to leave, but had to kiss him once more.

"Very soon." Riley couldn't manage to release her.

An agonized scream broke their passionate departure. "Would you make out later?" Forrest demanded.

"Buffy, just come take a look." Tara pleaded.

Circumstances shouting at them, the pair parted.

"Okay, what drugs did these people take?" Riley watched one group of party-goers apparently getting their minds blown- or possibly something else blown, by just touching a wall. In another room, there were ten people covered in cuts and it looked like a glass bottle hadn't just shattered, it had been purposely exploded. Most disturbing, at least to him, was that there was a sobbing girl sitting outside the coat closet holding scissors and piles of her own hair, rocking and screaming she was bad.

"It's not a drug, it's affecting too many people to be a drug, and in too many different ways." Graham said.

"It's the house." Forrest looked around nervously. People were fleeing the house at this point, screaming, crying, jibbering. "It's like the fireplace."

"What about the fireplace?" Riley demanded.

"This morning it blew up, for no reason. Like- backdraft. Mason was building the fire for an hour an' nothing happened, man. Then- boom! Dante's Inferno. Like a flamethrower, and Mason looked like a human torch. But in a few minutes, it was done, and all he's missing are his eyebrows. It was like- the fire wasn't real. But it was."

"Okay, now I'm wondering what _you__'__re_ taking. Why didn't I know about this? Are you sure this happened?" Riley looked skeptical.

"You and Buffy were busy. Reeeally busy at the time." Graham smirked. Riley blushed.

"Yeah, don't you two ever come up for air?" Forrest sounded annoyed.

Riley ignored him. "If it's the house, then the lab- oh God, the lab could be compromised too!" Exchanging a stricken look, the three headed to one of the lab's entrances. It didn't respond.

"Too many people to use any of the downstairs ones. Gonna have to cut to the back way." Riley muttered. "C'mon. Make this quick. Forrest- you stay here. Get the civilians out."

"Does Buffy count?" He asked bitterly.

"You know she's not exactly a civilian. If she can help, let her."

"Might not be an issue. This place is the sinking ship- and there go the rats." Forrest jerked his head towards people as they streamed from the doors.

* * *

><p>"I can't help it if he can't take a joke!" Spike snarled at Xander. Buffy stood between them, hands outstretched.<p>

"You joked about my girlfriend, so it's not a joke!" Xander spat back.

"Anya, you're not helping." Willow hissed as Anya sat back complacently and watched the verbal jousting.

"I don't want to. Xander's defending my honor. It means he loves me. We're back together!"

"Well, yippee for you, do you think you can calm down your little pit bull now?" Spike demanded. "You know it's not a fair fight. I can't punch him." He pouted slightly.

"So? When have you ever played fair?"

"I'm evil! I don't play fair! It's not an evil thing to do!" Spike lunged past Buffy, only to get a double whammy, one from her iron fist in his ribs, and one from his chip for having a violent impulse. "I bleedin' hate this, I fuckin' do..."

"Language!" Tara winced. Spike looked at her.

"Is she serious?" He asked Buffy, who shrugged and hauled him up.

"Look, you two obviously can't be in the same room right now."

"I'm not leavin'. Free booze and nibbles." Spike crossed his arms and looked defiantly at the Slayer, the object of his annoyance.

"I was here first!" Xander countered.

"Speaking of staying here, did anyone else notice that we're the _only_ones around?" Willow asked suddenly.

The sextet paused and looked around. The house did seem eerily empty suddenly. "Th-there was some problem, wasn't there? Riley had to run?" Tara recalled.

Buffy looked at her blankly for a second, lust sweeping her in a wave when she thought of him. "Oh. Yeah, that's right." The wave left and she was herself again. "We better find out what's going on."

"Split up?" Xander asked.

"I guess so. Just look around, see if they all moved downstairs or upstairs or something." Buffy shrugged.

"You lot carry on. I'm headin' back to the bar." Spike slouched off, only to find himself tugged back by Buffy.

"Oh no. You see trouble, and you'll join it. Or make it worse. You're not leaving my sight." Buffy put her hands on her hips.

"Again, for your California girl intelligence- I'm _evil_! Trouble calls to me, Slayer."

"Well, my stake is gonna call you to that big dust pile in the sky if you don't just shut up and come with me." Buffy hissed urgently, fingers wrapping around the lapel of his coat.

With a groan, Spike allowed himself to be pulled in one direction, still protesting. Buffy silenced him with a sharp glare. "Do you want me to just hand you over to these guys? 'Cause I'm starting to be okay with that. I don't know what experiments they're working on now, but maybe they've made a chip that causes headaches when you _open __your __mouth._"

Spike swallowed down most of his angry retort. The bint had a point. "You're a real bitch, Slayer."

"Yeah, well, you're an ass. Now shut up and concentrate. Something doesn't feel right about this- eeep!" Buffy gasped and leapt in the air as a huge green vine suddenly shot across the floor.

"That's new." Spike looked at it wide eyed.

"Oh, God. Where's Riley?" Buffy gasped. "Riley!" She bellowed. No answer. "Oh God, Riley?" And she ran, heading up the stairs.

With a sigh, Spike looked longingly towards the nearest exit- and then for some reasons he wasn't really sure about, he followed her._Maybe he'll have spontaneously combusted. Yeah. That'd be worth seein'._

"We've been paging you, Finn! All of you!" A uniformed man in a headset greeted Riley, Forrest, and Graham as they entered the Initiative's lab through an underground entrance just south of Lowell House.

"Signals must be jammed." Forrest pulled his pager out and inspected it. "Somethin' freaky is goin' on upstairs."

"The house entrances wouldn't work." Riley looked skyward. "We couldn't get down here from inside, we had to go to the emergency entrance."

"So what's the problem?" Graham also looked skyward. In a second all the techs and soldiers were doing the same. The ceiling, which would be the foundation of Lowell House seemed to be trembling slightly. "We can't have an earthquake in just the house. Can we?"

A tech came up to them, holding out papers and looking worried. "You've got a disembodied presence in the house."

"A ghost? Oh, come on." Forrest scoffed.

"What, vampires can be real but not ghosts?" Riley elbowed him and returned his attention to the lab tech. "Go on. What do we do with it?"

"We're working on that. Uh- we're not sure how you contain a manifestation like that. It has no corporeal presence."

"The hell it doesn't. It's shaking the ceiling." The uniformed soldier who'd been paging Riley pointed up with the muzzle of his gun.

"It's getting stronger. Readings are going off the chart." The lab technician explained nervously.

"Well, crunch some numbers or something. Tell us what we do." Riley demanded.

"We need you down here. Whatever's screwing up upstairs is starting to screw up down here. Look." The soldier pointed to a row of lit containment cages where demons were obviously agitated, pacing, roaring, and running into the walls and invisible "bars" of their cells, not seeming to feel the shocks. "You know how some animals can sense a natural disaster coming?"

"These guys sense an unnatural one." Graham breathed, expression grave.

"If these containment cells blow..."

"Damn." Forrest shook his head.

"Suit up. We're locking down." Riley ordered grimly.

"Is the house secured?" The lab tech asked.

"No." Riley realized belatedly. He'd gotten so caught up in the mission, he'd forgotten about any straggling civilians upstairs. _Buffy _was upstairs. "I gotta get up there!"

"Negative, Finn. Lock down procedure first. We're waiting for some of the others to answer their pages, but obviously, if the signal's jammed inside the house, and we're starting to feel the affects down here, too, we'll have to wait until they check in. Then you can go."

With a grunt, Riley nodded and looked at the ceiling one more time. It had stopped trembling for the second. _Lots of people had already left. She's probably gotten everyone out. Nothing to worry about. No one's probably even in there anymore._

* * *

><p>"You knocked. No one's in there, we can go." Willow anxiously plucked at Tara's sleeve.<p>

"No..." Tara tilted her head. "Someone's in there..." She sensed a presence. In distress, faint, something beckoned her.

"Tara, no. No one answered." Willow watched her friend slowly turn the knob of the upstairs bathroom. It opened. "See, not locked? No one there, let's go."

"Wait. If no one's in here- what's splashing?"

Willow followed Tara's gaze and saw water sloshing over the floor of an antique looking bathtub. Not the bath of a house full of commandos. "Oh man. Something icky's gonna be behind the shower curtain. Dammit. It's always behind the shower curtain. Did I tell you I can't watch the shower scene in_Psycho_? I saw part of it once when I was thirteen and I had to take baths instead of showers for three years after." Willow rambled nervously.

Tara gulped and swallowed hard. "We'll be okay. What if- someone needs help?"

"Right. Help. We do that. We're Scoobies." Willow said, taking a cautious but determined step forward.

"I'm a Scoobie?" Tara looked shocked and pleased.

"Well, yeah. I mean, if you wanna be." They exchanged a brief, shy smile.

"Th-thanks." Mustering up her courage, Tara strode to the tub, and with a nod, both girls pulled back the curtain. Tara gasped and Willow screamed. In the tub, a teenage boy was struggling under the water, as if held under by invisible hands. "Oh my God!"

"Grab his head!" Willow dropped to her knees and yanked on the boy's pale skinned, dark haired form- only to find her hands going right through him.

Tara's eyes were wide and scared. "Uh-oh?" was all she could manage to say.

"Ghosts?" Willow gasped, equally scared, hands still groping under water, although the tub was now empty. "I'm not so big on the ghosts. You can't hit them with holy water or stakes." She gasped out nervously.

Just then, the lights flickered and died, and the splashing began again, this time the water was blue, and so was the boy under it, the pale ice blue of suffocation. This time both girls screeched as they ran from the room.

* * *

><p>"Willow!" Xander stopped in his circuit of the downstairs, and Anya bumped into him.<p>

" And Tara. Upstairs!" Anya agreed and they both began to run. However, they didn't get far. An unseen force, an unaccountable wind, slammed them back into the wall of the downstairs entryway, and another gust sent them reeling backwards, outside. The doors slammed shut behind them, and refused to open.

* * *

><p>"That was Willow!" Buffy stopped her search for Riley when she heard the screams.<p>

"That's not good. She doesn't scare as easy as some." Spike said casually, lighting a cigarette. Buffy dashed it from his hand. "Oi!"

"Put that out and help me find her!"

"Oh, why should I bother?" Spike groused angrily. "What's in it for me, that's what I'd like to know. I can't even have a smoke, you won't let me get at the bar..."

"You don't get killed and we keep you safe when the Initiative feels like playing Find the Spike." Buffy growled.

"Got a point. Let's go save the witches." Spike said with false enthusiasm.

That was easier said than done. "Whoa." Buffy turned the corner in the direction of the screams.

"Your boy's been muckin' about with the Miracle Gro, hasn't he? Spike slowly looked over the hallway, now covered with a fine webbing of vines.

"That- wasn't here five minutes ago." Buffy continued to stare.

"An' if we don't move along, we might not be here either." Spike looked worriedly at the ceiling, where he could actually see the vines slowly coiling and growing before his eyes.

"You're not afraid of some weeds, are you?" Buffy challenged, striding purposefully forward.

"No." Spike spat heatedly and he joined her, just as the house began to shake. Windows rattled, the floor swayed, and he found the Slayer flung backwards into him, knocking them both to the ground. "Not afraid of anything." He lied easily with his usual bravado. "But I can't say I love what they've done with the place."

Buffy hastily picked herself up, suddenly very aware that she was alone with Spike, sprawled across him, and that only a couple months ago she'd sat in his lap, making out with him and planning a wedding while under a spell. _No lap-sitting. Lap-sitting bad- unless it's Riley's lap. Oh, no. Riley! Willow. Both of them are probably still in the house and they need me._ "We have to get through here."

When they tried again, the house shook more violently, and barbed vines snaked rapidly towards them. With a cry of dismay, Buffy halted, and Spike shook his head.

"We need some sort of weapon if we're gonna get through these creepy crawlies. Big machete or some such." Spike raked his fingers through his slicked back platinum hair. "Your boy toy got anything like that stashed in his room?"

Buffy thought. "No. But he has something else we could use." His "ray gun" as she couldn't help but think of it, would be in there. They could blast their way through any offending plant life.

"Well, let's go get it an' get the hell out of here." There was a sudden hard shake inside the house, and the lights flickered. Icy wind seemed to shove the pair forcefully back down the hallway, towards Riley's room. "Oi! Listen! Whatever you are, I'm evil, too. We're on the same soddin' team, so take it easy!" Spike shouted towards the ceiling.

"Why can't I ever go to normal parties?" Buffy muttered and ignored Spike as he glared menacingly around.

"It's what you get for being the Slayer."

"Like I could help that." Buffy shoved her way down the hall, which was becoming more and more like a wind tunnel, a dark, spooky one.

"Well, then it's what you get for hanging out with Commando Boy." Spike followed in her wake, batting at grabby vines, sometimes smacking them from himself, sometimes from her. When he realized he was unconsciously helping the bitch he loathed, he stopped, and had the satisfaction of watching a branch smack her right on the head. "Sorry 'bout that." He suppressed a chuckle.

"Right, Spike. And who should I hang out with, undead losers like you?" Buffy huffed, rubbing her head.

"Be a damn sight more entertaining." Spike mumbled. "Except for the part where you're the most self-righteous, tight-ass, little bint in the whole of California. Don't think I could _stand_ to hang out with you."

"Shut up, Spike." Buffy shook her head with a sigh. "Like I'd be able to spend more than three hours with you without staking you and dancing in whatever I vacuum up."

"Aww, you crush my poor little unbeatin' heart, Slayer." Spike pouted and put both hands over his chest dramatically. This left him unguarded and he got swatted with two barbed vines at once. "Oww! Bloody hell!"

"That's what you get for acting like a jerk." Buffy smiled, finally reaching the door to Riley's room.

"Aren't you s'posed to be Miss Goody Two Shoes? Where's the compassion?" Spike asked in an injured voice.

"I don't know Spike, maybe it got stuck in my 'self-righteous tight ass'." Buffy shouldered open the door, and Spike followed her inside.

* * *

><p>"I really, <em>really <em>don't like this." Tara followed Willow inside another room, and promptly back out. The specters were becoming more active. Wind had picked up, lights had gone out, and the house continued to tremble.

"At least there are no more dead people. I think." Willow whispered hoarsely. "Okay- this is the hall where Riley's room is. You said they were going to meet back there?"

"Yeah. Uh- for- for snuggles." Tara blushed.

"Well, smoochies and snuggles are called on account of demonic house stuff." Willow said firmly." I don't care if they want to be alone, right now, that's the place where I bet she'll be, and I'm waiting with her if she waits for Riley."

"You two are such good friends." Tara's voice sounded mildly wistful.

"The best. B-but hey- there's no limit to the number of best friends a girl can have, right?" Willow offered. Tara grinned, and they clasped hands, almost automatically, pushing their way against the internal wind that seemed now to be coming from Riley's room. The closer they got the stronger it seemed.

"I can hear something. Arguing?" Tara cocked her head.

"Oh thank God. Spike and Buffy. No one else would find time to argue in a crisis but them." Willow was breathless with relief. "Buffy! BUFFY! Can you hear me?"

* * *

><p>Buffy found it hard to focus when she was in the room. Spike continued to pull at the door, and she tried to find Riley's gun. But her hands and mind kept wandering. "Is it hot in here?" She asked.<p>

"I'm dead. I don't do temperature." Spike snarled, and kicked at the door, leaving a heavy black streak from the heel of his boot, but nothing more. "Sod it."

"What was I looking for?" Buffy found herself crouching by the side of the bed, pulling Riley's commando gear from the duffle under the bed where he kept it.

"Oh for God, sake, Slayer! A gun! Do you need my help to find it? You do know what a gun looks like don't you? Big, blunt on one end, pointy at the other, got a little trigger under neath, an' a little hole at the top?"

Buffy stared at him, open-mouthed. "That's disgusting."

"What?" Spike demanded, arching his dark brows in confusion.

"That- that- sounds like- other things." She mumbled, blushing and internally cursing. Since when did she stoop to Spike's level of potty brain?

"Bloody hell, I'm s'posed to have my mind in the gutter, not you." Spike crashed to his knees beside her. "Here. Lemme look." And look he did. At her. Suddenly aware that they were all close an' cozy-like next to commando boy's regulation made bed. "Uh. Now, which thing did you say you wanted?" _She smells- like heat. Like light. Shiny, pretty pout an' big green eyes lookin' at me. Wait, why is she lookin' at me? Why am I lookin' at her?_

"Buffy! BUFFY! Can you hear me?"

"It's your mates." Spike felt oddly relieved. And disappointed. He shook his head to clear it.

"Willow! We're in here! We can't get the door open, we're going to blast it open in a minute! Don't get too close!"

"Buffy! Tara and I can open it! We've actually been working on a spell to open doors! Hang on a minute!" Willow shouted back, voice almost lost in the wind.

"Willow- doing a spell in here might not be so good. Something has to feed a manifestation like this- and- and since everyone left, it's getting nastier. It's hungrier." Tara said urgently.

"But we have to try. Buffy's in there. Oh, geez, Buffy's in there with _Spike_!" Willow shouted towards the door again. "Buffy, is Riley in there, too?"

"No! Just me and the Toothless Wonder."

"Hey! Hey, do I go around insulting you when you're down?" Spike cried in an injured tone.

"Yes. Regularly." Buffy glared at him.

"Well... yeah, but I'm the bad guy. It's what I do."

"I guess I'm not feeling -too -good- right now!" Buffy grunted and finally managed to drag the blaster from the duffle bag. "Will, if your spell doesn't work, we've got something that'll just take the door down!" Buffy stood and hollered through the door.

"Good! Either way, we're going to get you out." Willow felt slightly more cheerful. They could get out, they would go find Giles, and he would know what the heck they were supposed to do with a possessed fraternity. Because he was just cool like that.

Whatever entity that was in control of the house, however, didn't want the couple trapped in the bedroom to be freed. There was an uptick in the wind, and instead of it blowing, it now sounded like moaning, growling. Definitely human- or former human- pained and angry.

"Make with the spell, Red! That isn't a good sound!" Spike shouted, joining Buffy by the door.

"Working on it!" Willow grabbed Tara's hand. "Portals, gates, and doorways, we beseech-"

That was as far as she got. Apparently one portal, gate, or doorway was paying attention and decided to open. Willow and Tara found themselves sucked backwards through the glass windows on the second floor of Lowell House, flying towards the ground with a scream and crystalline shower of shards.

"Willow! Wills!" Buffy heard the shrieks and leveled her blaster, pulling the safety from the trigger and hearing the noise of the weapon powering up. She cast a frantic look at Spike, who looked, for one of the few times in their acquaintance, genuinely upset. "Oh my God, something must've-"

That was as far as Buffy got in her speech. The wind seemed to invade the room and the bottom dropped out of the world with a stomach turning whirl of darkness.

* * *

><p>"Are we alive?" Willow lay on the damp grass and squeezed her eyes shut tightly, afraid to open them.<p>

"You are. _Xander__'__s_ less alive than you. He saw you hit the ground and assumed you were dead. He screamed like a girl and fainted." Anya's voice sounded strangely matter-of-fact and mildly perturbed. "Would he faint, do you think, if I got hurled out of a window?"

"Yes, Anya, I think so." Willow struggled up, eyes opening. "And after all, I am his best friend."

"How- how did we survive that?" Tara asked shakily, also sitting up, feeling herself all over for broken bones and abrasions and finding none.

"Oh, you'd be surprised. We got thrown out too, halfway across the lawn. Not even whiplash. Sometimes manifestations can do things that are real enough- but don't actually have the power to hurt you."

"Just scare the beejus out of you." Xander, now awake, came over and hugged Willow until her ribs squeaked a warning.

"Well, good, we're all okay. Scared and wigged out, but okay." Willow wheezed out. "Did- did Spike and Buffy make it out?"

Anya and Xander exchanged and look and shook their heads. "We tried to go back in, but the doors seem to have gone "exit only". And now we've got another little problem." Xander pointed to the house.

Tara and Willow stared for a minute, blinking. "That can't be good." Willow whispered, eyes stretching wide in horror.

Lowell House was shrouded in a thick black haze. When Tara stretched out her hand towards it, it moved toward her rapidly and halted before engulfing her. Tara hastily dropped her hand.

"It's the big cosmic unwelcome mat." Xander frowned grimly. "Whatever's ruling the roost doesn't want to be disturbed."

"But- but we have to disturb it! Buffy's trapped in Riley's bedroom with Spike in a house full of weird super plants and ghost things!"

"Don't forget the orgasm wall and the multiple sexual tension inducing hot spots." Anya added helpfully. The other three stared at her. "What? If you're going to deal with something, you should know what you're dealing with. Whatever is in there doesn't want to be disturbed and likes sex. And pain and fear. It's unhappy. And hungry. We should go away from it." She nodded brightly.

"We certainly aren't getting _into_ it, want to or not." Willow bit her lip.

"G-Man?" Xander asked no one in particular.

"Yeah. We'll have to go get him from the Espresso Pump. He has some 'adult' thing to do tonight, remember?" Willow cast a desperate look at the house. "M-maybe I could try the doorway spell again?"

"No. I don't think you should." Tara pointed to the cloud of mist as it thickened, leaving only the peaked roof of the building visible.

"Buffy's going to kill me. If she isn't dead." Willow moaned, and the foursome headed to the Espresso Pump.

* * *

><p>When she opened her eyes, all she could see was blackness. "Where am I?" She whispered faintly, just to make some noise in the lonely, suffocating, impenetrable darkness.<p>

Which became much less lonely and dark. A snap and hiss of a lighter and small pinprick of red-orange appeared beside her. Very close beside her. "_We_ are still in Captain Cardboard's room, Slayer. The question is- where the bloody hell is the _room_?"

Buffy scrambled up and went to put some distance between her and Spike once she realized she wasn't alone, and they were sprawled on the bed. She swung her legs over and yelped- both because Spike's hands suddenly yanked her backwards onto the bed- and because her feet had made contact with nothing. No floor. No rug. Nothing. "Wh-what?" She gasped, gesturing to the blackness and the single blue oasis of the room- the bed they seemed to be trapped on.

"You wanna watch yourself. We seem to be out of floor just now." Spike made sure his own feet were casually kicked up on the bed, thick boots crossed at the ankles.

"What?" Buffy demanded again, peering over the edge into nothingness.

"You know that phrase, 'when one door opens, another closes'?" Spike puffed a long drag on his glowing cigarette. Buffy nodded. Spike gestured into the distance, vast blackness and nothing recognizable. They were in the room- but they weren't. Spike felt the girl shiver once, and he chuckled, bleak and bitterly."Red an' her little wicca pal might've opened a door somewhere- but they closed us in here real good."

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

**Uncontrollable**

**by Sweetprincipale**

_Author's notes: Set during Season Four, basically an episode re-write of Where the Wild Things Are. For the sake of the piece, I played with some of the settings and events, but not the main feature of the plot._

_Short, smutty,Spuffy, with hints of deeper emotion. I needed a break from my big pieces. _

_There's a lot of conflicting emotions going on, so this is wordy. Moderate smut with the confusion._

_Please read and review!_

_Dedicated to BaDWolF89, Fangface Andrea,DLillith21, Vera Snape-Evans , jaimee01, and ginar369_

_Direct quotes from songs or shows are obviously not mine, but owned by the talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

**Part II**

"What do you mean- we're closed in?" Buffy asked with mounting panic. She didn't like confined spaces- something about being powerless- or being in a coffin, the early resting places of all slayers, but hey, why remind yourself?

"Don't know if it was the witchy set or just what's got hold of the house, but we're not in Kansas anymore." Spike watched her carefully. _Hmm. So the mighty Slayer's scared, is she? Of what? Of the darkness, or bein' trapped in some cosmic coat closet, or me? No,the bitch has never been afraid of me, an' now I can't hurt her, dammit. Unless she's scared of bein' alone with . In the dark. On this bed...with nothin' to do to kill the time but- Oh, bloody hell, where did that thought come from?_

"We can't be locked in here- there's no _here_, here! There's just a bed! What kind of demony house haunter sends you into a parallel universe with just a bed?" Buffy screeched.

Spike looked at her, a long, searing, unsettling look. The type of entity that just wants us to get down to it an' shag our brains out, Spike thought, but didn't say. They might be stuck there for hours or days- no good pissing off his only companion so quickly. Even if it was fun...

Even in the dark, Buffy could read that look, could follow the train of thought- because she was having it, too. The house deliberately kept them in, and everyone else out. They were stuck in a bedroom. And when they were about to leave it- boom. No more room, just bed. No leaving. Just two people- okay, one people and a vampire- and a bed. Doesn't take a genius to figure out the intentions. "We are getting out of here. Now." Buffy knelt on the edge of the bed, and grabbed hold of one of the sheet edges. "Hold this!" She demanded of Spike, and began untucking the rest of the bedding to use as a rope.

"Oh, Slayer, don't be stupid. There's not some magic invisible floor down there."

"How would you know?" Buffy grumbled, moving quickly. She had to get off this bed. Away from him. Because in this room- place- whatever- her body and her mind didn't work very well together. Her mind was screaming in panic, and her body was saying, "Just lie down, I know something that'll make it all better." Her body was winning. She was more of an action than a thought kind of gal. So she'd better take some evasive action.

"I _don__'__t_ know, but I'm not willin' to fall for eternity into some black hole 'cause you're scared of the dark."

"I'm not scared of the dark!" Buffy spat, and started tying the sheet around her shoulder. "Don't let go, or I'll come back up here and stake you."

"You pull me into oblivion with you an' I'm gonna haunt you for eternity."

"You're already dead, you already haunt me, and if I'm in oblivion, I'm kinda unhauntable, right?" Buffy took a deep shaky breath and sat on the edge of the bed like a diver preparing for a seated dive.

"Fine. Whatever." She's smarter than she looks, Spike was forced to admit. He grimly held on and watched her start to slide over. "Slayer- be careful." He blurted. He felt oddly worried, like he was responsible for her. Like he needed to keep her on the bed with him and make her forget everything that scared her and just feel- feel somethin'.

Buffy blinked and swallowed. _That __proves __we__'__re __in __some __weird __dimension. __Spike __doesn__'__t __give __a __damn __about __anyone. __Except __when __we __were __engaged __for __those __couple __hours. __He __was __so __sweet. __He __was __so __worried __about __protecting __me. __No! __Bad __brain. __No __thinking ,__take __action. __Not __the __naughty, __lying __down __action, __the __good, __saving __my __ass __kind __of __action._ "I'll be fine. Just don't let go."

"I won't." He said with utter solemnity. And he wouldn't. Here was the perfect chance to get rid of her, and maybe his chip didn't work in here. Even if it did, just one little slip of his fingers, and one giant headache, and no more Slayer Barbie. But he wasn't going to do that, for some reason known only to whatever beastie was calling the shots in Bed Central.

Buffy lowered herself down cautiously, trying not to freak out completely. Every centimeter she slipped off the bed felt like slipping into some icy lake of death, and the pulsing throb in her brain that had dimly registered Spike's not-totally-awful-at-the-moment presence was now shouting at her that every millimeter of space away from him was one too many. She had to get back on the bed and back to him. They had to be touching, they had to be close, so that they could- so that they could- well, they had to do something, she just didn't know exactly what.

Spike could still see her shoulders but he felt like he was looking at her through a telescope. He could stick his hand out and tangle it in those wavy sun bleached locks, but it felt like she was on the other end of the world, too far away, too untouchable. No dice. He needed her to be touchable. Very touchable. "Slayer." He croaked.

"Spike!" She panted, and they were scrambling, her to get up and him to pull her. They met on the edge of the bed, and she found herself in a suffocating hug of black leather that smelt like whisky and cigarettes and something else that didn't have a name but should because it was so insanely wonderful. At least to her. "I was so far away." She gasped out.

"Never do that again." He ordered into her hair, lips on her scalp. Lips on her scalp? Spike's eyes snapped open as if waking up.

"Why are we hugging?" Buffy asked in a strangely muffled, worried voice.

"I have no soddin' idea." Spike pushed her roughly away- even though it felt like he was tearing his own skin off to separate.

"This is- this is all your fault! You know I'm freaking and you're taking advantage!" Buffy huddled into her own crossed arms, rocking like a small, scared child.

"You're givin' off pheromones or somethin', Slayer. I might be takin' advantage, but your body is wavin' me in." Spike countered, painfully aware now of a scent, not something he could place as hers, but a general haze of want and need of the female kind.

"Then you are too!" Buffy pouted, because she was sure he must be. Why else would she suddenly think the smell of him was so intoxicating?

"I'm dead! I don't do pheromones or hormones or any goddamn bodily functions. Well- just the one." The protesting tone became faintly sexual. Buffy couldn't talk around the sudden constriction in her throat, so she just turned her head from his and stared into the darkness.

They sat in silence, the cloying scent in the room getting stronger, and the fogginess surrounding their minds thicker. "We can't do anything about it." Buffy suddenly said, knowing what thoughts were running through their brains.

"As if I'd want to." Spike spat, lying through his fangs. He hated her with a passion, but right now he wouldn't mind being passionate in a different way. Just for a bit.

"Well, even if we did want to. Because we can't. It's wrong. I have Riley and you have Harmony."

"Don't make this night worse, Slayer. Harm an' I don't speak, an' you know it."

"I didn't know. I- I'm sorry. I guess?"

"Nah, she drove me bloody mad ninety percent of the time." Spike shook his head, thinking he wouldn't mind if his ex-annoyance were there just now, just to relieve some of this damnable pressure.

"What about the other ten percent?"

"She was asleep or shaggin' me silly. Hard to hate her then. Although sometimes I did." Spike confessed easily.

"Okay- but still. This- now, would be wrong. Because I have Riley. And- and we hate each other, what the hell am I saying?"

"Don't worry, Slayer, whatever you're sayin' is what I'm thinkin'." Spike sighed, lying down and sliding his duster off.

"What are you doing? Why are clothes coming off?" Buffy smacked his arm.

"It's my coat! I'm not likely to ravish you jus' 'cause I take my coat off. It must be a hundred degrees in this place."

"I thought you didn't do temperature." Buffy mocked him with his own words from earlier.

Spike paused. "That's right. I don't." He looked worried. "But I feel hot now."

"If this is some trick-" Buffy warned him.

"I feel hot, okay? Do you feel it or is it just somethin' affectin' me?"

Buffy bit her lip. She was dying and she really wanted to get out of her shirt. Of all the days to wear long sleeves, or not to wear layers so she could take something off to cool down. She was stuck in the tight fitting brown shirt, and she felt like it was getting tighter every second, strangling her. "Yeah. It is hot." She fidgeted uncomfortably, lifting her hair off her neck.

Spike smirked. "You can ditch the clothes, Slayer. I promise not to tell your army lad about it."

"Shut up, Spike, before I shut you up." Buffy hissed.

"Lighten up, Slayer. Your mates are probably circlin' the wagons as we speak, an' any moment light will be restored and we'll both leave, virtue, such as it is, in tact." He found himself making his tone more playful and less surly. He hoped she'd appreciate it, because it was a major effort on his part. His groin was protesting loudly about it's lack of involvement in decision making and his head was protesting equally loudly that he was turning into a damned nancy lapdog, soothing his sworn enemy.

But she seemed to appreciate it. "You're right. You're right. Any minute, we'll be free and clear and never, ever have to tell anyone about this, okay?"

"Gotcha. We never got the primal urge to merge."

"Nope. Never did, and we're never going to do anything about it." Buffy nodded firmly.

Which was when an absolute blast furnace of pure sexual desire and raw heat attacked them both. "Holy crap." Buffy swooned, hands to head, flat on her back. "What was that?" She gasped like a fish flung from its bowl.

"I dunno." Spike, already on his back found himself reaching for her hand. "Oh, bloody hell, I don't know." He felt her fingers wrapping in his own, like she wanted to hold his hand.

"I'm not doing this. I can't be doing this. I will not be doing this!" Buffy chanted, but watched in awe as her fingers knitted with his. "I'm not - I mean- I don't want to!"

"I know that. I know you don't want to. But you do." He tried to explain. Body and mind were not a team at the moment. Buffy let out a little whimper of frustration, partially sexual, partially self-loathing. Spike recognized that sound- he thought. He'd heard her make it once or twice immediately after the spell that caused their hellish engagement wore off. "Red!" Spike sat up in a fury.

"Willow?" Buffy joined him, trying to ignore the way his muscles rippled when he pulled himself upright. "Where?"

"She was doin' a spell. An' we all know how very good she is at that." Spike said drily.

"But... the house?" Buffy gestured to what used to be around them.

"Oh, the house is probably to blame. Your girl couldn't do somethin' on this scale." His fingers were still woven with hers, and now his bare forearm was brushing against her sleeve feeling the heat from her skin soaking through it. This type of heat was pleasurable, soothing, warming, beckoning. He followed the arm up to the shoulder- softly sloping, her chin resting on it in an innocently sexual way as her big green eyes worriedly met his gaze. Sod it. He was about to lose this battle. "Twice in a couple months you've been all over me." He stared at their meeting flesh. "If this is another one of Red's spells gone wrong, I'm killin' her- chip or no chip."

Buffy's mouth opened in an angry retort- or at least that was her plan. Instead it just opened and crashed hard on Spike's pushing him hungrily back to the bed, awed at how badly she wanted to feel him return the embrace and awed with the fervor with which he did so. The kiss continued, heavy and hard, her driving it- unaware of his hands skimming under her shirt until she heard the soft scrape of her bra opening. With a yelp, she sat up- and found her hands joining his instead of pushing them away.

_I__'__m __about __to __get __topless __with __Spike. __God, __it __would __have __to __be _Spike_._ "Don't worry, Spike." She angrily muttered. "It this is one of Willow's spells gone wrong- I'll _help _you."

* * *

><p>Willow stood outside the Espresso Pump with an expression of trepidation on her face. "Um- h-he told us not to come. He- he needed some grownup time." She bit her lip. "I hope he's not going to be upset that we're crashing his 'me time'."<p>

"I think he's going to be more upset that Buffy's trapped in a cursed fraternity house with Captain Clorox for company." Xander shook his head and pushed open the door. "I'm sure he's just enjoying a kid-free cup of coffee with a big dusty book that he knows we'd be bored to death talking about."

The foursome halted abruptly as the entered the shop, stunned into immobility by what they saw. "Or I could be totally wrong." Xander said lamely, once his jaw stopped scraping the floor.

Giles was sitting in a circle of admiring people, jeans and jacket replacing suit and tie, and an earring topped off the casual outfit. An _earring_! But most shocking of all, was not his appearance, it was what he was doing.

" No one knows what it's like, to be the bad man, to be the sad man, behind blue eyes... No one knows what it's like, to be hated... " Giles sang with his gently strummed guitar, voice seductive and mellow, pulsing and enthralling all the patrons of the coffee house. And now, unbeknownst to him, four of his young friends.

Anya let out a breathy noise. "Oh."

"Wow." Willow agreed.

Giles continued to sing. "To be fated..."

Xander looked at his girlfriend and his one time high school secret sweetheart and current best friend practically dissolving as they watched the guitarist. "Um, could we go back to the haunted house? Cause, this is creeping me out." He finally protested faintly.

"Does he do this a lot?" Tara looked at the graying Watcher with new eyes.

Xander snorted. "Sure. Every day the earth rotates backward and the skies turn orange."

Giles still continued to sing, unaware of his new audience members. "But my dreams, they are as empty, as my conscience- " At which point he looked up, saw them and looked like he might die of mortification, but bravely continued to croon. "seems to be..." Willow smiled some encouragement, and he sighed internally. Trust them to find him on his one foray into former guilty pleasures... "I have hours, only lonely... "

"Now I remember why I used to have such a crush on him." Willow whispered to the group.

"Well, he _is_ pretty good." Tara appraised.

Anya swayed slightly. " His voice ..." she drifted off, lost in some sort of erotic fantasy, only to realize she had left the sentence hanging, " is pleasant." she concluded.

"What?" Xander yelped as all three girls continued to become more and more riveted by the man he considered a father figure.

Willow refused to tear her eyes from Giles, but answered. "Oh, come on, he is kinda sexy."

" I'm fighting total mental breakdown here, Will. Remember? Big nasty mojo with a side of perverted keeping Buffy and Spike locked together in a room? That's all the weird sexual contemplation I can handle, so stop drooling all over Giles. No more fueling the fire, please."

Giles ended his song and there was wild applause, none more wild than from his three newest female fans. "This had better be very, very good, or very, very bad." He glared at them when they swarmed him as he placed his guitar in its case.

"Oh, this touches whole new levels of bad." Xander sighed.

"I might've known." Giles muttered with his own sigh. "Just once, I'd like one of you to tell me it was something good..."

* * *

><p>Spike paused, and kneaded his fingers into her shirt before rolling it off over her head. This was too good, and too bad, to take in. So he toed the fine line between very carefully.<p>

"You sure?" He didn't know what he was going to do if she said no, since his body was pretty much on autopilot, but the little minx was damned resourceful and unpredictable. She might just be waiting until he was vulnerable, ogling at what were sure to be a pretty little pair of tits, and go for the kill. It would be highly ignoble to die nursing a hard-on and heading for second base with a slayer. The name of William the Bloody would be further mauled.

Buffy shook her head and nodded in quick succession. Spike didn't move. "I'm not sure. But- I don't think I can stop. If you can stop-"

"I'm tryin', believe me." Spike groaned, and then yanked her top up and off. A pretty white lace bra overflowing with honey colored cleavage confronted him. "Tryin' less hard now." He admitted.

Buffy leaned down, hiding herself from him, knowing it was a contradiction that she was hiding her breasts by pushing them to his chest, but unable to think straight. She felt panic rising, but each time it came out the winner and she felt like she could regain self-control, the lust wave overrode it and she could only think about hot, sweaty limbs tangling together.

Spike heard her whimper again, and this time felt a pained tremble run over her. "Hey. I'm not gonna- that is- I can't hurt you." He murmured into her hair, hands caressing her silken back, reveling in the feel of alive flesh, lust heated flesh in his hands for the first time in years. "I'm chipped, remember? Can't hurt."

Buffy cocked her head up. "Did you just try to be nice to me?"

"No." Spike lied.

"I won't hurt you either." Buffy breathed, lips a fraction from his. "You know I don't like you or anything, right?"

"I know." He kissed her swiftly, needfully.

"But I can't help it." She let her tongue work in, delighting in the slightly cooler feel of his own darting with hers.

"Beyond our control, swear to it." Spike nodded, deepening the kiss.

"How long do you think we're going to be in here?" Buffy gasped, before she clawed his fitted black tee shirt free of his pants.

"Dunno. Your lot work fast."

Buffy felt torn between relief and worry. If she didn't get to relieve some of the tension, she was going to go insane. "Yeah. They're pretty quick."

"Don't worry." Spike read her sudden apprehension accurately. "I can be quicker- at least the first time."

"First time?" _More __than __one __time? __I__'__m __going __to __sleep __with __Spike __more __than __once? __My __life __sucks. __Except __that __he__'__s __so __handsome __and __his __body __is __amazing. __Bad __brain. __No __enjoying, __no __complimenting, __just __do __this __and __make __the __overwhelming __sex __jonesing __stop._

"If we're here for hours..." Spike arched his scarred eyebrow. "Don't worry, Luv. Plenty I know of to occupy our time.

* * *

><p>Across town, an angry middle aged man slammed out of the cafe and stomped to his car. "In my day you got pantsed or you urinated on a police car or got your bum branded! <em>That<em> was a fraternity! _That _was hazing! What the bloody hell kind of campus is this?" He demanded, enraged.

"One on a hellmouth?" Willow squeaked, trailing after him.

"And it's not really a fraternity at this point, it's a cover up for government operatives." Anya added, cheerful to add to the accuracy.

"I'd best take a look at the place so I know what we're up against. And quickly. No telling what may be happening to Buffy in a house full of hostile manifestations."

* * *

><p>The hostile manifestations in question seemed to have only one goal. Take away any and all inhibitions of a couple and feed off their sexually generated energy. The entities hadn't realized what an utterly stubborn and mismatched pair they'd selected. They'd sensed stamina, passion, fire, and a large dose of primal, not quite human power. Perfect for their purposes- if you took out the complete disgust the particular pair felt for one another.<p>

* * *

><p>"Stop." Buffy gasped out, breathless from kissing. "Human- need air."<p>

"Proof that vampires do it better." Spike growled, but obeyed, moving his mouth down to her bare nipple.

Buffy arched and moaned, pulling him more firmly onto her small bud, body desperate for the sensation, while at the same time her mind reached a whole new level of loathing. "Don't."

Spike shook his head, but lifted his mouth. His hand slid down to her jeans and snapped the button open and yanked down the fly.

"Yes." Buffy's mouth spoke for her hips. They lifted and parted, wanting his hand to caress her where she'd find some release.

"Are you sure? 'Cause you keep givin' me mixed signals." Spike's fingers twitched, just shy of meeting her arching pelvis.

"I don't want to do this." Buffy whispered desperately, and just as desperately clenched his wrist and led his hand into the soft, split v between her legs.

"That's the biggest mixed signal yet." Spike yanked his hand back, intending to find his will power and stop any and all foreplay- and instead found himself ripping open his belt. "God dammit, Slayer! This is fuckin' ridiculous!"

Buffy blinked in dawning realization. "You really don't want to, either?"

"Why the hell do you think you're still wearing somethin' besides a smile? If I wanted to to do this, I'd have had you screamin' my name by now." He snarled sharply.

"I guess I thought you'd love to do this. Humiliate me and- um- you know." _Make __me __your __freaky __love __toy __because __I __have __all __the __backbone __of __a __worm __in __a __bottle __of __tequila __just __now._

"Don't get me wrong, I would love to beat your skinny little behind to a pulp an' display your freshly plucked head as my trophy." Spike sighed and let his hand go where it wanted- to rest lightly on her face. "But I'm chipped an' I can't. When I fought with you, I was never gonna- muck about with you." He jerked his head towards her crotch. "Angelus did that. Not me. I liked the fight an' the blood. Not- hell, I didn't like doin' things like that because I didn't like that he'd done it to Drusilla. All right?" He shifted angrily, suddenly ill at ease. He didn't talk about that. Drusilla seemed to think it was her "Daddy's" right, after decades of his brain washing. Only when she was mad at Angel did she ever seem to remember exactly what he'd done and how she'd felt.

Buffy's mind did a neat little trick where it seemed to slide right into the pit of her stomach. "He told me he tortured her. He didn't say he-" She couldn't say the word. Her tongue actually felt like it was turning to ash when she thought about it. Fortunately, Spike jumped in.

"Oh, please, Luv, why d'you think he hates himself so much? That's a big part of his 'torture'." Spike snorted bitterly. "He _should_ hate himself. My poor dark princess..."

"Tonight sucks. Absolutely, horribly sucks and I- I want a refund on the tortilla chips I brought to this stupid party." She said petulantly. Spike laughed drily, and she lost her air of anger momentarily. "I'm sorry about Drusilla. Was it before she was turned or- or after?"

"Both. And does that matter? He still- she begged him not to-" Spike swallowed and reached back for his cigarettes with a shaky hand. "My fallen, effulgent cherub." He whispered to himself.

"No. No, you're right, it doesn't matter. You're right. Angelus is scum."

"For once we agree. Smoke?"

"No." Buffy squirmed closer to him, a strange blend of comforting, sadness, and lust propelling her. "I'm glad you feel the same way about this, I guess."

"That it's an utter buggered up shambles?" Spike suddenly cocked his head angrily. "I wonder if this isn't another little experiment from the wonderful lab rats downstairs. See if you can make people fuck, even if they hate each other."

"The Initiative can't do this." Buffy winced. "Can they?"

"I hope not. Bad enough they tell me where I can put my fangs, don't want 'em tellin' me where to put my other bits an' pieces."

Buffy found herself looking up at him, mesmerized by the way his lips caressed a cigarette and the way his hands traced the air for emphasis when he talked. He might be evil, but he's pretty evil, she found herself giggling madly inside.

Spike looked down at her as she suddenly had a spasm of mirth. "You've cracked, huh?"

"You're pretty evil."

"Very evil, thank you very much."

"No. Pretty. You're pretty." She giggled aloud this time. "Oh my God, I'm losing it. This house... why in the world would a house want to make people horny?"

"I dunno, Slayer. Doin' a good job, though, aren't they?" Spike dragged another long blue gray cloud of smoke into his unbreathing lungs and then sent it spiraling into the black oblivion that existed outside of the bed.

"Yeah. They are." Buffy swallowed and watched his white abdominal muscles roll and ripple as he turned on his side and looked down on her. She felt exposed and scared, and oddly not "scared" of him anymore. Because they were just stuck in this weird nightmare mess together, doing things they didn't want to do.

"We can either hate this, or make it fun- since we gotta do it anyway." Spike's voice took on a seductive, husky edge, and one thumb trailed from her jaw across the hollow of her throat and over a soft, round breast, ending on a nipple.

Buffy jumped and shuddered- but not away from him. "Fun is so not happening." Spike grunted and muttered,

"Suit yourself."

"I can't think of this as fun. But- but maybe we don't have to be miserable?"

"Let's try that, then." Spike smirked suddenly and resumed his teasing play on her nipple. His enemy turned bedfellow arched into his touch, a golden goddess, all tawny satin and soft pink accents. "Fuckin' gorgeous." He praised because he couldn't help himself.

"You're not so bad yourself." Buffy whispered, one slender fingertip, nail scraping slightly, danced over the midline of his sculpted torso, ending at his unzipped black denim jeans.

Their eyes locked. "Go on then. Might as well get to the headliner of this show. I don't think we get a choice about whether or not he makes an appearance." Spike's voice was a low, edgy purr.

"Oh, God." Buffy sounded miserable, but her hands moved eagerly. "I can't believe this is happening..."

Spike watched her eyes widen and then light up as she slid the fabric away from his hardness. Her blood, sweetly singing already, began to pound harder, her golden skin went a shade darker and her breath came in puffs. "Well?" He arched a smug eyebrow.

"Wow." Buffy managed to mouth.

"Let's see what you've got, Slayer. I don't like feelin' under dressed at a party." Spike's fist latched onto her waist band and tugged. Amazingly, he found her hands helping to push the fabric down until thin silk underwear stared back at his curious eyes.

"Well?" Buffy echoed his query, feeling faint and lightheaded from the rushing blood.

"You'd look better in nothin'." He pressed, and tugged the thin scrap of fabric away. Her hand immediately yanked the sheet over her waist. "Oh, now really. Play fair, Pet. I showed you mine..." He wheedled teasingly. He'd caught a glimpse of fine downy curls, a manicured little patch. But he wanted to see the real goodies, all the secrets she was hiding. He wondered if Faith, when posing as Buffy, had told him the truth, about Slayers having muscles you could only dream about, about riding him so mercilessly and making him love every moment of it. She probably never had, not with her track record of piss-poor bed mates. But since they didn't have anything to do but play, might as well make the best use of all their time and talents.

Buffy hesitated. She wanted to have him inside, and she knew once she gave in, she'd be in a frenzy, uncontrollable, animalistic. All the things she never was in "real life" didn't come into play in this weird little bubble on reality. "I can't believe we're doing this." She said for the tenth time that night, and let Spike slide under the covers beside her.

As he ran a hand longingly from her shoulder to hip, electrifying her with each inch of skin he brushed, he laughed darkly. "Don't worry, Slayer. You can just blame whoever's throwin' this little party." And with that, he felt their inhibitions dropping as skin met skin, and they forgot about anything but the sensation of touch for a few moments.

* * *

><p>Giles stood worriedly outside Lowell House. "Oh dear." He surveyed the impenetrable black mist around the building.<p>

"That's what we said. Only not so dignified sounding." Xander joined him.

"And you say everyone else fled? What started people on that path?"

"Uh, well there, were a couple things." Willow spoke up. "The house started to shake."

"No, before that- people started freaking out on each other." Anya spoke up impatiently. "Couples mostly. One minute they'd be kissing and the next second the girl would be screaming it was a sin and wigging out."

"Oh, that poor girl, Julie!" Tara exclaimed. "She was playing spin the bottle and she kissed some guy, and the next thing you know, she'd l-locked herself in a closet and cut off all her hair. She was screaming she was bad, over and over again."

Giles' eyebrows nearly reached his hairline. "So- so it seems to be related to- to amorous interactions?" He flushed slightly.

"It sure as hell doesn't like 'em. The bottle they were using in the game? It blew up like a glass land mine." Xander shook his head worriedly.

"It does so too like amorous interactions!" Anya disagreed vehemently. "Otherwise why would the house have an orgasm wall?"

"A _what_?" Giles hadn't been the most conventional young man in his wild Ripper days, but even he'd never heard of an "orgasm wall".

"There was a spot on the wall in the den. You put your hand on it and you got a happy." Xander explained quickly before Anya could do it more graphically. "Not that I tried it!"

"My point, the house does like sex. Why else would it barricade Buffy and Spike alone inside a bedroom?"

"Maybe it wants to see how long it takes for Buffy to snap and kill the jerk?" Xander said hopefully.

"Th- that's not true. Exactly. It likes it- and it hates it. Ev-every time something um- romantic- started happening, something bad happened next. L-like Riley and Buffy. They were going to go spend some 'couple time' in his room and it was like they couldn't even think straight they just had to get inside-"

"That's been happening since yesterday." Willow shook her head. "They hit the smoochie phase of their relationship a little hard since they made up after the- the Faith thing."

"But something bad happened to separate them and keep them busy."

Giles interrupted. "We're not getting anywhere like this. We need to head to the campus library and research this place. Maybe it's imbued with some magical significance I'm unaware of. But we're doing no good standing here discussing the 'house's' attitude towards sexual interaction. It isn't the house itself, anyway. From all you've said, there must be at least one entity involved. Maybe two, one who promotes -erm- sexual activity- and one who punishes it. We're not learning anything in this manner, we'll research."

"But we can't just leave Buffy in there for longer." Willow cried. "She's all by herself- except for Spike."

"I feel terrible about that, and that's why we have to hurry." Giles turned on his heel and led his pack towards the nearby library. "I'm not too concerned about her." He lied. "Spike's unable to hurt her and she's been in much worse situations than simply being trapped in a room with a harmless, if annoying vampire."

Xander looked relieved. "That's right. He couldn't touch her without getting zapped."

"I'm not worried about Spike." Anya waved her hand dismissively. "I'm worried about what the spirits in the house want them to do." Everyone looked at her. "Well, you don't throw everyone else out but keep one couple unless you want them for something, right?"

As one, the Scoobies moved faster.

* * *

><p>"Slow down." Buffy whispered, even though her body was screaming the opposite, reaching for more and more, to be satiated as soon as possible.<p>

"Stop pressin' your hot little body into me, an' maybe I could." Spike growled. This had to be the sickest of all sick foreplay he'd ever engaged in. Endless, mindless kissing, hands all over one another, and neither one of them able to enjoy it, just being driven further and further towards doing the deed, and neither one of them actually touching each other where hands would be the most welcome.

"I need you to touch me, though." Buffy voiced desperately. "You have to touch me."

"Slayer." He sighed in a mixture of exasperation and relief, and held her tight, loving her soft, lithe warmth. "Sweet Slayer." He added in a whisper, face resting on her shoulder, lips against her ear.

"Spike..." She didn't mean to say his name like that, with so much affection. But she did, letting her eyes close and just focus on the feel of him beside her. Against her. Hardness against her stomach that would soon be inside her. _Spike__'__s __parts- __in __my __parts. __I __don__'__t __love __him. __I __don__'__t __even __like __him, __and __he __doesn__'__t __like __me __either._ She made a small strangled sound of sadness.

"Wish you wouldn't make noises like that." Spike glared at her briefly.

"It should have been Riley- not you. We were up here, and then I had to leave to go break up a fight _you_ were trying to goad Xander into." She fumed.

"I just like to tease the bloke, one of the few pleasures left I have in my current condition." He snapped. "An' I'm sorry I'm up here, an' not him, 'cause God knows he'd be better for you than me, plus then I wouldn't have to have Buffy taste in my mouth."

"He's my boyfriend! This isn't a game. I'm not supposed to be with anyone else, you jerk!" Buffy hissed.

"An' I'm not s'posed to be with you at all, Luv, so get down off your high horse. There's nothin' good about this whole damn mess."

Buffy ignored him, lost in her own sudden maze of worry. "Promise you won't tell Riley? To hurt him?"

Spike rolled his eyes. Gotta be one perk to this mess. Although, physically speaking, Slayer wasn't hard on the eyes, and when letting the lust take control of her, she had a nice touch. Vanilla and nervous, but they could fix that. Still, sticking it to Mr. All American would've been nice. "Aww, Slayer, bloody hell. Can I hint?"

Buffy sounded panicked, really panicked, with no haze of sexual fervor to tone it down. "No. Please. I didn't mean to, it was supposed to be him, not you, and I'll have to tell him someday, but-"

" Shh, I won't tell, don't get your knickers in a bunch." Spike halted her babble. He sighed. "We're gonna make the best of this." She fixed him with those jade pools, now looking overflowing, and it hit him hard. If she was crying- if he was making her cry- well, he was the same sort of unspeakable bastard Angel was. "Please don't cry, Luv. Don't be sad." He heard himself murmur. "Look, think of it as training exercise, or sex therapy or somethin'. I can teach you lots, got over a hundred years of wild sex on my side." He offered, wide blue eyes glinting with just a hint of mischief under the seriousness of his tone.

Buffy felt genuinely appreciative, and nodded in silence, not knowing quite what to say. Well, say _something_, her brain angrily prompted. _He__'__s __trying __hard __to __help __you __out. __He __doesn__'__t __like __this __either, __but __you __don__'__t __see __him __being __a __wimp. __Who__'__s __the __damn __Slayer __here? __Toughen __up! _"Thanks, Spike." She said softly.

Spike was taken aback by the honest appreciation in her tone. In an equally soft voice he answered. "Welcome." Then the bravado managed to creep back out and he tossed his head with a proud jerk. "But I'd appreciate if you didn't tell everyone I went all nice on you though.

"Deal. Secret. If anyone asks, we spent the entire time arguing and insulting each other. It's kinda true, right?" They both laughed, and Buffy found herself pulling him to her more tightly. In his arms, strangely enough, she didn't feel so trapped. Or at least, not so alone. " And hey- I might be younger than you, but I bet I can give as good as I get, Mr. Experience." She challenged. He laughed again, deeper this time, a low throaty chuckle that suddenly made her feel all hot and tingly.

"Fine. You're on Slayer. First step, we aren't makin' it easier on ourselves by fightin' it, so let's just stop worrying so much, and then instinct takes over." He stopped talking, found his hips bucked once against her leg. "At least mine is."

Buffy, trying to relax, found her hips rising to his. "Mine, too. Okay, just feel, don't think. And maybe when I'm completely not focused on the problem of how to get out of here, I'll think of something. I'm distracted enough and poof! Answer. Sometimes that happens."

"True enough. Worth a try. Just feel." He let his hands wander south of her hips, the no-hands zone of only a few moments ago. Her legs shifted and his mouth practically watered. She had to be incredibly soft and tight, and if he got to taste her..."Just feel. Do whatever you need to, Pet. Whatever makes you feel good." He let his fingers start playing lightly, ever so subtly, under her navel and down to her nether lips. Slowly, gently, barely touching. Like stalking prey, don't want to startle it.

"Ohhh." Buffy let out a soft breathless noise when his hand brushed between her legs. She unthinkingly grabbed his hand and held it there.

"That's right. Whatever you need to feel good, yeah, Slayer?" He coaxed.

As she let herself slide into mere feeling, opening her legs wider, she again felt puzzled by him. "This isn't like you." She suddenly accused. "You're a jerk. You're selfish and rude and -"

Spike kissed her hard, to shut her mouth. When he pulled back, he glared down at her. "And you don't know a damn thing about me when I'm in bed. When I care about someone, I give my all an' they come first. Literally and figuratively." His glare melted to a cheeky grin.

"You care about me?" Buffy felt the world do another one of those stupid reality altering spins.

He shrugged. "As far as the room is concerned, I do."

With that, the last barrier of restraint in Buffy's mind snapped, and she leaned up, and kissed him hard, finding he matched her perfectly.

* * *

><p>In the halls of Lowell House, vines and briars began growing at a tremendous speed, feeding off of the sexual energy they possessed. The presences in the house began to relax. If those two could keep going long enough- and they were sure they could- soon the house would be irredeemable. The house that held so many bad memories and so much pain and confusion would finally be obliterated- and they would be free.<p>

* * *

><p>Giles tore off his glasses as he slammed shut another volume. "Willow, Tara, what did Buffy and Spike say again?"<p>

"They were going to blast the door off. They had Riley's gun." Willow looked down at her hands. "Then I- I tried a doorway spell- it opens doors."

"It works! We tried it on the door to the broken dryer in the campus laundry room." Tara leaned forward to defend her friend.

Giles smacked his hand down. "But with all that power in the house-"

"It was stupid. I know. I was only trying to help and now they're trapped in a swirling black maze of ghostliness." Willow put her head down on her crossed arms with a groan.

Anya flicked a page of a book lazily. "No. They're probably just dead."

"Ahn! They're probably _fine_." Xander glared, patting Willow's head.

"Unless they're too busy to notice where they're at." Anya countered.

"Too busy? Doing what?" Giles asked, concentrating on a new book.

You know, for a god of acoustic rock and someone with a colorful past, you're- kind of naive." Xander said gently.

Giles rolled his eyes. "I didn't think you meant ... In the midst of all that, do you really think they would- well, how absurd. They _loathe_ each other."

"But, well, see, that's the thing. People all over the party were starting to act- uh- weird. Sexually." Willow said quietly.

"In what way?" He needed a clue to point him to the cause, not a random string of incidents. Something concrete that people were doing.

"You know." Willow looked embarrassed. "Ways." She became very interested in a pile of old newspaper clippings.

Giles sighed and supposed the information he had was really enough to go on. But he was still only guessing, and when Buffy was involved, guessing about her safety made his stomach churn, even if he didn't show it. "Well, it could be some form of, uh, succubi, or a satyr's prank. It could even be energy coming from th- the lab underneath the Lowell fraternity." He ran his hand over his face in nervous exhaustion.

Willow suddenly sat up straighter. "Look! It wasn't always a fraternity, look!" She waved a clipping and the Scoobies piled around quickly. "Listen! Between 1949 and 1960, the Lowell Home for Children housed upwards of 40 adolescents: runaways, juvenile delinquents, and emotionally disturbed teenagers from the Sunnydale area."

Tara's eyebrows shot up. "Children? Teens? Did any of them, um, die in there?" _Like __the __poor __boy __in __the __bathtub..._

"If there were deaths, then, uh, perhaps we're dealing with a fairly- standard haunting." Giles squinted at the article.

"It doesn't say. It's mostly about the old house director, Genevieve Holt. "Sunnydale Children's Aid. Thirty years of community service. Giving disadvantaged kids the love and care they deserve."

"When did she die?" Giles asked. Maybe the disembodied presence of the head of the home for children was the one stirring up trouble. Perhaps the influx of new young men, combined with the demon presences in the lab below had awakened her spirit.

"Let me see... Oh. She didn't." Willow looked up from the most recent article. "She lives right here in town."

"We'd better go see her then. Someone needs to give us answers." Giles rose and the others followed.

"I just hope there's something positive." Tara whispered to Willow.

"Me, too. I hope Buffy and Spike haven't beaten each other to a pulp yet. This has got to be making her crazy. She hates Spike and she hates being stuck in places. When she was stuck in Faith's body, in that cell, she told me later that was almost as bad as worrying to death."

"Poor Buffy." Tara fretted.

"Poor Spike." Anya added. Everyone halted and glared at her. "What? He can't lay a hand on Buffy- but she can beat him up all she wants."

"There's something good about this night after all." Xander muttered.

* * *

><p>There might be something good about being stuck in a cosmic void with this one, Spike thought with a low growl as he and his temporary lover clawed each other in their frenzy. "That's right, make it hurt in all the right places." He hissed. If he'd been stuck with Harmony, he'd have ripped his own head off in the first two hours. The chit was the biggest waste of space he'd ever encountered. At least this one had some flair.<p>

Buffy bit down on his shoulder and slammed her hands hard against his ice white biceps.

"Oh, Kitty likes to ride, does she?" Spike smirked. Fine by him. Let her ride, let her see that this stallion had some tricks.

Buffy considered. She'd been on top before. Did she like it? She didn't really know, it just went with the good girlfriend sex guide. You don't just do one position. She and Riley did two, her on top, him on top, with minor variations. _But __Riley__'__s __not __here __right __now. __You __don__'__t __have __to __be __a __good __girlfriend. __Find __out __what __you __like- __either __that __or __you __let __this __thing __have __all __the __control. __If __you __don__'__t __at __least __try __to __get __something __out __of __this, __you __caved __completely. __You __might __be __forced __into __this __sick __game, __but __you __still __call __some __of __the __shots._

"We'll just have to find out." Buffy whispered, and started to angle her hips over his, not looking down, not wanting to see what she was about to do.

"No. Not just like that." Spike caught her cheeks in his hands and squeezed. Buffy rolled her hips, forcing the mounds deeper into his palms. He almost gave in right there, but his own instinct, as well as the heady environment urged him to do more than just a simple shag. _Gott __have __her. __Own __her, __taste __her, __touch __her, __push __her __to __give __in__to __that __little __touch __of __dark __inside __her. __Turn __the __kitten __into __a __wildcat..._

"What?" Buffy asked breathlessly, desperate to be filled, hungry for release in a way she didn't know she could be. Not about love, not about like, just about lust, sex, heat. Bad Buffy- but it felt so good...

"No appetizer before the main course?" Spike licked his lips, flicking his tongue sexily over his incisors.

"Huh?" Buffy's mind didn't want to figure that out, or couldn't, because she was hyper focused on impaling herself on him- and the bastard wasn't letting her do it.

"I don't just want these lips around me." Spike dipped his hand between them and stroked her soft pink petals, making her shiver on his fingers. "Want this set, too." The wet fingertips trailed over her slightly open mouth.

Buffy moved her head from his hand, and watched when he sucked her juice instead, staring at her, making her cheeks grow warm. Making all of her grow warm, and she was ashamed at being so aroused at the thought, at the sight. "I- I don't do that. Not with a vampire anyway."

"Bet you would do it with Angel." Spike hinted.

"He had a soul." Buffy snapped.

"Not in his cock, Luv." Spike laughed crudely.

"Pig."

"Maybe." Spike suddenly sat up, and when she moved her hands into a defensive position, he caught them and held them in his own, grim smile on his face. "You want me to just lay you down an' fuck you, Slayer? Make it quick an' hard and get it done with?"

"I wouldn't let you 'lay me down' if I was still breathing." Buffy retorted, tearing her hands free.

"That's right. 'Cause you an' I, like it or not, have a lot in common, Luv. You do things no other Slayer has done, an' I do what other vamps don't. We can let this thing make us completely mindless fuck puppets or we can make it worth the hell it is." His blue eyes burned into hers.

Buffy pushed the good girl bubbling fainter and fainter with each passing second further and further down inside. She might go along with this- but she was getting what she wanted first, her need, her want, her pleasure- then maybe his. "Me first. No teeth." She choked out in a barely audible whisper, and fell back. Fell back, legs falling open, and waited for the blackness in the room to somehow invade her through him. Or waited for him to forget their odd little truce and hurt her when she was vulnerable.

"Pretty pink peach." Spike rasped, and slid to his stomach as smoothly as a seal breaking the surface of the waves. Hands went first, up her legs, pressing on her thighs, holding them open, then fingers, firm but not painful on her outer lips, and just when Buffy thought she was going to die from anticipation- cool fire, all over her.

She gasped and sat halfway up, looking at the sleek blonde head bobbing and tonguing her with incredible skill, like nothing she had ever felt or imagined. "W-wow. H-how'd you get good like- like that?" She gasped.

"Been practicing for more decades than you've got fingers." He lifted his head and grinned. "An' vamps are good with our mouths- gotta be, it's all in the mouth, Luv." He smirked smugly and returned to his feast. "You taste like I knew you would. Sweet an' sticky." He ran his tongue feather lightly across her mound, ending with a sharp flick on her clit. that made her jump and dig her fingers into his as they rested on the tops of her thighs. "That's right, Slayer. Open up for me. Wanna taste what's inside. There's a naughty little piece of darkness inside you, an' I'm gonna find it an' let it out to play."

Buffy wrapped her fingers more tightly with his, opening her legs farther, resting a knee over either of his shoulders. "It's not bad, what's in me. It's- it's what makes me strong. Slayer-stuff." She hissed as he probed more diligently inside her.

"Tasted what's inside slayers before. But never this. So this is your power, huh?" He pushed a finger inside her, the first hard penetration they'd shared, and she keened from the slight impact. _Holy __shit, __that __Faith __might__'__ve __been __psychotic __but __she __was __right. __Set __of __muscles __like __to __crack __bleedin__' __walnuts._

"More." Buffy grabbed his wrist, squeezing down on his digit.

"Soon." Spike kissed around her nub gently, teasing her, making her crazy by brushing it but never touching where she wanted to be touched the most. "This is too much to play with." He teased, chuckling up at her.

Spike never saw a woman move so fast, but somehow he was flat on his back and she was holding his shoulders in an iron grasp. "So where's your power, then? You said you found mine. What did you tell me earlier, 'I showed you mine, now you show me yours'? Where is it? What makes Spike tick?"

He looked up at her in sheer awe. "You're good."

"I know." She fibbed. She hadn't known, and maybe, in normal circumstances, she wouldn't be, because she certainly would never challenge her boyfriend like this. But Spike- well, he was fair game in a completely unfair hunting season.

"There's a demon in me, Luv, you already knew that. If you're looking for my power source, well, you've already seen it." Spike vamped and unvamped quickly. He paused, looking up at her with delight, delight he didn't want to feel, but couldn't help feeling. She was going to be incredible. Hell, she already was. Her taste, her tightness, her banter, her strength and speed. It was _almost _as good as Drusilla, might have been _as_ good, if he'd actually liked the girl. "But if you wanna do more than just see it-" He gestured towards his painfully stiff erection that pressed almost flat to his stomach, turgid and maddening. "If you wanna taste it... wanna feel it..."

"I want it all." Buffy gave in more fully to the sexual energy coating her, starting to slide down the length of his body, licking her lips.

"You can have it." Spike smiled, and threw his head back with a groan as she started to take what he was offering.

* * *

><p><em>To be continued...<em>


	3. Chapter 3

Uncontrollable

by Sweetprincipale

_Author's notes: Set during Season Four, basically an episode re-write of Where the Wild Things Are. For the sake of the piece, I played with some of the settings and events, but not the main feature of the plot._

_Short, smutty,Spuffy, with hints of deeper emotion. I needed a break from my big pieces. _

_Please read and review!_

_Okay- big smut warning. Definitely not for those who don't like explicit. You were warned, okay?_

_Dedicated to BaDWolF89, Fangface Andrea,DLillith21, Vera Snape-Evans , jaimee01, and ginar369_

_Direct quotes from songs or shows are obviously not mine, but owned by the talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part III

He fell from her mouth with a wet pop and loud groan of loss. Buffy smiled, pleased with herself. "Who's the Slayer?" She laughed, looking at him as he seemed too blissed out to move.

"You are. You are one hell of a Slayer." Spike laughed as well. She was fun when her morals were stuck in limbo. "So when I get you nice an' close, do I get to stop and ask 'Who's the vamp?'"

"You might not like the answer..." Buffy teased,but a pang of regret hit her. If only she'd had her first time back. She'd do so much more- before it all had gotten ripped away.

Spike watched her face shift and he tugged at her chin. "Gimme a chance. I'll make you forget anyone but me- just for a few minutes." He winked, his own face serious under his small smile.

"That might actually be good." Buffy sighed. Then shaking herself out of her faraway thoughts, she sat up. "I got you 'nice and close'?"

"Yeah. Couldn't you taste that?" Spike reached down and pumped himself once, cock glittering with her saliva, and then clear beads at the tip. He swiped his thumb over it, collected the dew and before she could move, tucked the same thumb over her bottom lip. "That's what close tastes like."

Buffy's eyes closed. _Great. __I __like __it. __And __I __never __tasted __it __before. __Wonderful. __The __half __a __dozen __times __I__'__ve __done __this __for __Riley __and __I __didn__'__t __get __him __close._"Okay, I'll remember that." She whispered finally, pushing his thumb out with a pout of her lips. She kissed the hand for good measure, surprising them both with the affectionate gesture. But neither seemed to mind, or be inclined to tease, knowing it was an undeniable part of the atmosphere.

"Can't wait to taste you when you're close. When you cum."

"You already- when you were licking me..." Buffy shrugged and stopped.

Spike shook his head and bundled her up in his arms suddenly, pulling her to his chest. "That wasn't a proper one. A proper one makes you scream an' there should be sweet Buffy champagne runnin' down your thighs."

"You talk- you talk like a poet sometimes. Or a great writer." Buffy answered dreamily. Spike flinched for a second, and the seductive, flowery tone of voice was replaced by a much harder one.

"I jus' happen to appreciate good sex." He covered. He might have to get physically cozy- even a little heart to heart was okay. But he refused to talk about his failed career as a wooer with words. "Aside from which, you talk like you barely have a thought in that pretty head- but you do. You're brilliant." _Dammit. __You __weren__'__t __supposed __to __mention __that._

"I'm brilliant?" Buffy's eyes went from dark to luminous, and Spike cursed every green speck.

"Yeah. You are. I know you are 'cause you never stay down for long. Hate that about you."

"Well- you- you do okay. When you were bad-"

"Oi!"

"When you were still _violently_ bad, okay?- you were no fun to fight."

"Aww, Slayer, you noticed." He nibbled her pouty bottom lip, working his way across her jaw and down her throat. _Oh, __for __a __little __de-chipping __action. __Wouldn__'__t __take __it __all-__just __most __of __it.__C__'__mon __evil __overlords __or __whatever __you __are-__can__'__t __I __have __a __sip? __It__'__s __an __aphrodisiac... _Spike decided to see if the chip worked here in limbo. He worked one hand down to caress her buttocks, and then kneaded a bit harder, a bit harder, and-

"Ow!" Buffy swatted Spike's hand. "You just pinched me!"

"I know." He winced. "Didn't think a little pinch on the bum would be so shock worthy."

Buffy considered. It wasn't like it was violent to pinch your lover- oh, ewww, _weirdness_- on the bottom sometimes. "Sorry." She tentatively rubbed his head with an apologetic hand. "I know you weren't trying to hurt me."

Spike blushed inside, but didn't confess. "Did it too hard, I guess." He shrugged.

"Speaking of hard- shouldn't we be - you know- in position by now?" Buffy let her hand hesitantly find his length.

"Your army lad rushes the foreplay doesn't he? Must be a human thing. See, vamps- we're not going anywhere. Why rush the good bits?" Spike slid her hand up and down him. "You let me drive, Pet. Show you some nice things." He slid her thigh easily over his, she was all pliable and eager, and then worked two fingers inside her. "How do you stay so tight, Slayer?"

"I don't know." She panted, and stroked him in time to the pulsing of his finger inside her. "What are you- ooooh my God!"

"There it is." He beamed naughtily. "Found the on switch."

"What the hell is that?" She repeated, more shrilly, more breathlessly.

"Not hurtin' you- didn't get zapped. Jus' let me play, Pet."

"No, it's good! It's really, really, really good, and-" She closed her eyes and waited for a spasm to pass. Spike's fingers slowed and gentled.

"Like that? I take it the other boys forgot to go lookin' for the jewel in the crown?"

"All this time I thought _Cosmo_ was lying." Buffy grinned bashfully. "Do more?"

"Plenty more." Spike felt a flood of manly confidence and pride he hadn't felt since the chip. _Can__'__t __hurt __her-__but __by __God __I __can __make __her __beg __for __me...__call __my __name...__wrap __her __pretty __pink __treasure __chest __around __me __an__' __fuck __me__ '__til __I __can__'__t __walk. __Yeah. __Not __bad __for __a__ "__toothless__" __vamp. __What__'__s __more-__I__'__m __gonna __make __her __want __to __give __it __back. __Make __her __want __to __please __me. __That__'__s __something __I __don__'__t __think __any __vampire __ever __did __to __a __slayer. __An__' __don__'__t __talk __to __me __about __the __Poof, __he__'__s __a __disgrace __to __the __uniform..._

Sure enough, Buffy had a generous, compassionate nature and it kicked in, spurred on by the equivalent of hitting the sexual version of the lottery jackpot. No way on earth was she selfish enough to just let him make her feel so good without doing something in return. Instinct took over.

"Oh, yes. That's the Slayer side, init?" Spike watched in awe as she contorted, now kneeling above his pistoning palm, mouth in a frenzy of biting kisses all over his chest, paying particular attention to his nipples and neck, one hand still rocking steadily, faster and faster on his member.

"No." Buffy shook her head breathlessly. "Slayers are- loners." She was panting about to lose herself on him. "Buffy cares."

"Then it's both, 'cause Buffy's not this brutally good. That's the extra special Chosen One package, Luv." He shuddered and locked his muscles. "Stop." He hissed suddenly, about to cascade over the edge.

"Noo, no more teasing, Spike, I- I have to." She rocked herself down hard onto his fingers and he felt her milking them in a frenzy.

"You go on. But stop worryin' about me an' enjoy yours. I want to cum inside you." His cobalt blue eyes gleamed a challenge, and a cocky smirk waited on his face. He twisted his fingers with a little extra oomph, and rolled his thumb over her nub for good measure.

Bastard. Talented, sex god bastard. No one had ever let go inside her-well- Angel couldn't make her sick or give her a little bundle of fangy joy, so_he_ had...

"Imagine much, much fuller, an' movin' a whole lot harder," He coaxed.

What had she thought? That evil sex specters were going to provide condoms? "Okay." She heard herself whisper, and watched the grin twist evilly. "But don't look so smug, or I'm -"

"Giving up this?" He rolled her over, loving her little muffled, surprised yip, and pushed his fingers in harder and faster than before. Her wail reverberated in his ears, and his hand flooded.

"Never mind. You earned smug." Buffy cried in the waning of her convulsion.

"Too right I did." Spike withdrew his fingers, using the copious amount of girl cum to ease his entrance. "Earned this, too?" He lined his tip up with her trembling opening, but didn't push in.

Buffy watched him through half-lidded eyes, body still in after shock mode. He was waiting for her okay. Even though she was all boneless and defenseless like this. Sometimes the bad guys have manners, she thought, and she wordlessly nodded.

Spike's shudder and gasping collapse on top of her made it worth it. "Oh, fuck. Oh, bloody fuck, Luv. So hot. So wet, an' tight. _Bloody __sweet __fuck...__"_

"Feels good?" She teased in an exhausted whisper.

"No idea how long..." He trailed off. How long since he'd actually enjoyed it. He hadn't meant to, but damn, she did feel wonderful.

"How long?" She didn't understand. Heck, she probably couldn't have told you her zip code at this point, of course she didn't understand Mr. Suddenly Cryptic.

"Since I didn't hate this part." He whispered.

Buffy's eyes flew open. "What do you mean?"

"Only ever loved Dru. You know that. Know she's my weak spot." He still hadn't moved, was just lying on her, bathing in her heat and tightness. So different from Dru or Harmony.

"So with Harmony?" She queried.

"Mindless fucking." He lifted his head to look at her. "Would rather feel something, than nothin' at all."

She swallowed. "Were you faithful to Dru? All that time?" _Great __Buffy ,__go _Oprah _on __him. __Sex __is __unavoidable, __but __you _so _do __not __have __to __go __evening __talk __show __on __him. __But __she __did __kinda __wonder..._

"One hundred and fourteen years, would've been one hundred fifteen in September." He grinned bitterly. "Not that she- well, she was broken in her mind. She didn't always know what was real. Or right. It's not her fault." He angrily defended her from what he imagined Buffy was thinking.

"Shh. It's okay. It's okay to love someone even if they don't always treat you right." She heard herself saying, and their eyes locked. He nodded slowly. He got it. She got it. Love hurts. Love always hurts. Good thing this wasn't love.

"Even with Harm, it wasn't like this. It was part of the package. Good lookin' bird, you take her to bed. Actually think I'm startin' to like this better. Bit like playin' chess with no clothes an' cummin'. A challenge to the mind an' a pleasure to the body."

"You are so weird." Buffy shook her head. "But I guess you have one good thing about you. What you had with Drusilla- I guess I respect that. Especially you being a one woman kind of guy. Not so common these days." She thought of slimy Parker, and even Riley's accidental infidelity slapped her in the face afresh.

"Women deserve that. How I was raised." He lifted himself up on his hands. "Fortunately, I've forgotten a lot of the rules of my day. About treating women like fragile, helpless little waifs. You don't like it when the boys won't let you play, isn't that right, Pet?" He lifted her hips easily with one hand and rocked into her once, experimentally. He closed his eyes in ecstasy, almost too drunk on sensation to hear her reply.

"You never treat me like I'm weak, I'll give you that much."

"Then let's see what you can take." Spike growled happily.

"Bring it on." Buffy locked her ankles behind his back and they started in earnest. After the first few seconds of sheer awe at how good it felt, they found themselves sharing a grin. "I'm gonna wear you out first." She challenged.

"I can go for hours, Pet. Maybe days." He shook his head.

And they smiled again.

* * *

><p>"I'm so sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Holt." Giles said with his most charming, gentlemanly smile, holding the door for the elderly woman, frail but still sharp mentally, eyes bright and active behind large lenses.<p>

"No, no, I don't mind at all. I was up. Early morning prayer." She waved away his apology.

"Of course." Giles answered automatically, although, he felt it should more likely be called middle of the night prayer. It was just past three.

" And I like talking about my kids." She sat, and motioned Xander and Anya to sit as well. "I still call them that. My kids." She smiled fondly. Giles sat and shared her smile.

"I-I suppose you were like a mother to them. You did everything for them?"

"Oh yes. I fed them clothed them, educated them in the way of the Lord. I was given a medal." She beamed.

"Yes, wonderful. Uh, congratulations. Um, this'll sound a little strange, but, ah, did you notice any odd... disturbances in the house?"

Mrs. Holt frowned and tilted her head slightly. "I don't understand."

He did so hate this part. It was now that he'd usually have something thrown at him or the police would be called and he'd be charged with harassing dear little old ladies. _Saintly_ little old ladies. Nonetheless, Buffy was at stake. "We-well, um- like uh- furniture moving of its own accord? Or uh, objects appearing out of nowhere, or, or perhaps you saw someone appear one moment, and then they were gone the next, inexplicably?"

Giles hated that stare he was receiving. The stare that wondered if _he_shouldn't be in a home, not the senior citizen in front of him.

"Why, that sounds like crazy talk." Mrs. Holt cried.

Well, he had predicted it. "Yes, it does, doesn't it? Yes. Um... Well, forgive me for, for asking this, but um, the children in your care, were any of them ever ill, or did anything ever happen to any of them?"

"Well, some had the flu and such. No one died, if that's what you mean. The engraving on the medal says how good I was with the children."

Giles smiled in return. Back to that are we? "Oh, yes. Certainly."

Mrs. Holt's smile became vacant, eyes looking back into years past. "I treated them as I would my own flesh and blood. Gave them hugs and praise when they were good, and ... punished them when they were dirty." Her voice hardened. Anya and Xander exchanged a look at her tone, but Giles laughed quietly.

"Well, ah, children will be children. They, you know, they do like to play in the-uh- the muck."

The older woman frowned down her nose at him, peering over her steely rims with a disapproving glare.

"You didn't mean mud dirty."Anya shook her head. _Sexually __repressed __old __biddy._Anya felt a momentary pang for the late Mr. Holt.

Mrs. Holt talked to the wall above Giles' head as though she hadn't heard Anya. "My kids didn't think I knew, but I did. Oh, yes. I knew."

"Very-erm, perceptive of you." Giles felt himself flushing. Was there no end to the humiliation? Why did it have to be sexual? Thank God Willow and Tara weren't here. He didn't think he could take one more of Willow's death-by-explicit conversation moments.

"Without me they would have been shut out of the kingdom. Lost to lust." She clucked.

"But you ... _helped_them." He said slowly, beginning to get some very worrisome ideas.

"The girls felt the vanity more than the boys. I'd see them preening like Jezebel. Doting over their pretty hair."

"So you'd hack it off." Xander half rose from his seat, remembering poor Julie at the party.

Mrs. Holt's disapproving glare deepened. "I'd remove the temptation to admire themselves. They were better for it."

Anya interjected before Xander could blow his top. "What about the bathtub? Something happened there."

"I performed baptisms on the most unclean. Those who were tainted with impure thought and deed." She said simply.

"You held them under?" Giles' voice was rising.

Mrs. Holt's voice matched. "They needed to be reborn!"

Anya called out again. For information gathering, Xander and Giles were sure forgetting to get the information part. "What about the room over the fireplace? End of the hallway?" Riley's room.

Mrs. Holt's lips thinned. "They'd given into temptation. They mustn't contaminate the pure. Separate the goats from the sheep! He commanded it, the Lord spake and said-"

"The Lord spake and said what? If you catch someone fooling around, put them in solitary?" Xander lost it. "I went to Vacation Bible School one week per summer for ten years straight, lady! They didn't say that!"

Mrs. Holt rose in a fury. "You choose to pass judgment on me?" She quavered.

Giles fairly leapt to his feet. "Well, someone ought to! You traumatized an- and abused these children, children who- who have no doubt become extremely disturbed adults! My God! Locking up troubled teenagers for reaching out to find comfort from someone? Lord knows _you_ weren't comforting them!"

Mrs. Holt waved her hand dismissively and began to walk away. Giles followed, gripping his hands into fists to prevent himself from reaching out and grabbing her, giving her a good shake. "You have ruined lives, Mrs. Holt. Furthermore, what you did has now manifested itself as a-a malevolent presence which threatens still more lives! You have a great deal to answer for."

" I refuse to listen to this when I can smell the sin on each and every one of you." She sneered.

"Yeah? You smell sin? Well let me tell you something, lady, she who smelt it dealt it!" Xander shouted. Giles gave him a confused, and not entirely pleased look. Xander explained. "It's like what you said, but faster."

"I think you should leave." Mrs. Holt showed them to the door, and they barreled through it, eager to be out of the presence of someone who looked so sweet and nurturing, but inside was so cold and unfeeling.

Xander broke the frustrated silence as they tromped down to Giles' car. "Well, that totally adds to my 'old people are crazy' theorem."

Anya shook her head as she mulled over the unpleasantness they'd just heard. "I don't get it. I mean, those kids were tortured, but they weren't killed, so where are those ghosts coming from?

"I don't believe there are any ghosts."

"Giles. There are people walking through other went right through me as the house shoved us out the door." Anya explained patiently.

"Not a ghost." Giles maintained. "An apparition. I believe we're dealing with a kind of poltergeist. A whole cluster of them, in fact, born out of intense adolescent emotion and sexual energy."

"Both of which were totally pent up during Mrs. Holt's reign of repression."

" And some of it seems to be centered in Riley's room- the- the apparent holding cell for those poor teens who tried to physically express their affection for one another."Giles continued worriedly.

Xander coughed. "So with Buffy and Riley having ... you know, acts of nakedness around the clock lately, maybe they set something free. Like a ... big burstin' poltergasm."

Giles agreed. "Yes. And now the poltergeists are drawing more and more energy out of them. Feeding on them in fact. Buffy and Riley are, are powering this whole thing."

"Uh- only they're not the ones in the room anymore. I mean, Buffy is, but Riley _isn__'__t._" Anya raised her eyebrows significantly.

"Oh, dear Lord. Oh _dear__Lord._ You may have been right all along, Anya. About- about their actions."

"I'm usually right. Remember that, Honey." Anya beamed at Xander.

"But- but Buffy and Spike- I mean- I mean oh, God, mental scarring and physical vomiting!" Xander cried.

"Calm down. Calm down, I'm sure that whatever is happening to them is beyond their control. Like the- the wall you mentioned." Giles tried not to give into the same emotions.

"The orgasm wall." Anya said helpfully.

Giles pursed his lips."Yes, that, or couples acting abnormally affectionate, or that girl who cut off her hair. Whatever they're going through- and we don't know if it is of an affectionate nature or a violent nature, they aren't able to help themselves." Giles' face became even more sober. "They most likely aren't fully aware of what they're doing, and won't be until it's over, if it is like the other occurrences you've mentioned." His eyes were very grave.

"Poor Buff. She must hate it. She must be- oh, God, Giles, that's like rape." Xander's face twisted and his chest heaved in sudden panic.

"Xander-" Anya tried to calm him as the enormity of what might be happening to his best friend struck him.

Xander pushed on. "Well- at least, maybe, I don't know- it'd be like Spike taking advantage of the fact that Buffy's all loopy. I bet he's loving it, the jerk. I'm gonna kill Spike, defenseless or not." His eyes glinted with rage.

"Spike's not doing it!" Anya cried.

Giles, out of fairness, had to agree. "Xander, he'll be equally affected. The house is making puppets out of both of them. If there is-" Giles swallowed, loathing even the mention of the word he was about to say, " a-any type of 'rape', which I'm praying there isn't, it's happening to both of them, and the entity is responsible. For all we know, the entity is feeding on them in some completely different way. All we do know is- it's kept Buffy and Spike at the epicenter of the situation. It needs them somehow. For something."

Xander took a deep shuddering breath to collect himself. "Okay. And hey, Spike can't hurt her, he's chipped." He comforted himself. "So- so even if they're doing it- she has to want him to- or at least let him. Okay. I won't kill him- not for this anyway."

"Right. We just have to focus on getting them out of there before the entity- is finished with them." Giles steadied the younger man with a pat on the back.

Xander cocked his head worriedly. "So, they're the battery in the boo factory. So what happens when the battery's drained?"

Giles put the car into gear and didn't answer. "Hopefully Willow and Tara found Riley and he was able to find a way in from the underground entrances."

"Giles! Answer me!" Xander shouted, getting into the back beside Anya.

Giles looked graver than they'd seen him all night. "I'm not sure what will happen to Spike. Nothing good. But Buffy- Buffy would die." His knuckles were white on the wheel and he stared straight ahead, features tortured.

Silence fell heavily. "Drive faster." Anya whispered, and the Citroen sputtered and rattled into the night.

* * *

><p>"I'm not sure we should try this." Tara wavered and shivered in the suddenly colder night air.<p>

"I know. But I've called his pager a bajillion times in the last thirty minutes. I don't know what else to do." Willow paced the perimeter of the house.

"I guess we just have to wait. Magic makes it worse." Tara watched the black, unnatural clouds swirl around the house. "Is it just me- o-or can you hear something?"

Willow cocked her head. Moaning. Angry fierce moaning. And- huh...something, but she couldn't make it out. "I'm afraid to get closer, that inky stuff is like flubber with an attitude."

"Listen harder." Tara took a half step up.

Under the tortured, inhuman moans, there was a wisp of noise. "Someone sounds happy? I think?"

"Oh. You don't think... I mean- we couldn't hear anything with all the wind that's-"

Suddenly, ever so faintly, they heard, "Yessss, Slayer, yess!"

"Oh. I guess we_can_." Tara flushed pink.

"Poor Buffy. Oh, Tara, we have to help her before she-"

Another faint interruption. "Oh, God! Spike! Yes, Spike harder, harder harder!"

"Um. I think- I think they aren't- hurting each other." Tara told Willow who looked faint. "Th-that's good. Isn't it?"

"They don't know what they're doing! Buffy doesn't! She'd never cheat on Riley."

"I know, Willow, it's the h-house." Tara calmed.

Willow looked worriedly at the house again. "Still... knowing what they're doing or not, I really, _really_ hope Riley doesn't come up here after all." She bit her lip. "I don't want to be up here right now either. Let's go wait on the sidewalk for Giles."

* * *

><p>"Finn! Take a break form hand to hand, we got a fresh squad! Mason's team is back. Our readings are off the scale. You can take a team and get up to the house." A scientist called to Riley as he finished wrestling a curl-horned demon back into a containment unit- for the tenth time since he'd come down.<p>

"Right! Graham, Forrest, get Hines and we'll-" The speech was interrupted by a sudden klaxon reverberating. Red lights flashed and inhuman roars were heard. "We have a grid breach! Grid breach!" Riley's sentence changed abruptly.

"What? The whole grid?" Forrest smacked the butt of his rifle into the face of a female vampire.

"GRID BREACH!" A chorus came from the containment area.

"Power readings are _exploding_!" A lab tech called, and wheeled a cart of syringes towards the containment units.

"Finn, you'd better-"

"Stay here, I know, I know!" Riley elbowed his way into the fight. Six cages ran off of each grid. Single cages had been opening all night as surges spiked the grid. But an entire grid had never gone down all at once. "What is _going __on_?"

"We don't know! Something bad. Some presence is getting stronger and stronger. I don't know what we're going to do if it blows the entire system."

"Someone has to get up there, man!" Gates shouted. "That's the source of the problem, right?"

"He's right, all we're doing is putting out fires!" Graham shouted over the roar of demons emerging, relieved to be free.

"Not until we get them contained, soldiers, and that's an order!" The current head of operations appeared in the melee.

"But, Sir-"

"Finn- help me get these hostiles contained and then you're free to go. You don't even have to wait for a squad. I don't think we can spare them anyway. Just do some reconnaissance and report back."

"Yes, Sir!" Riley wanted to salute- but his hands were full. "Go down, Drooly." Riley shoved a slavering demon to the ground and held him so a lab tech could sedate him. The ceiling shook and the lights flickered, and the demon reared back, smacking Riley in the face and the lab tech on the arm, catapulting his needle into the air.

"There goes another grid!" Someone shouted from farther down the hallway.

"Dammit!" Riley slammed the demon down hard, cracking off one of the small spikes running along its head. "Shut up and stay down or so help me I'll put you down for good!" Riley roared angrily. His eyes sought the ceiling. He had a bad feeling in his gut, growing every second.

"I have to get up there." Riley muttered to himself, eyes still cast upwards.

* * *

><p>"Right there, right there, <em>right <em>_there_!" Buffy's chant turned into a mewl and she felt the overheated sparkles burst behind her eyelids again.

"Oh, God, yes. God, YES!" Spike's insistent affirmation heralded his release, long, deep, and almost painful because he'd held it so long.

Buffy hadn't expected to enjoy that part. But she did. She felt proud and like she'd been successful. Of course, trying to make that thought verbal right now was out of the question. "Good?" She managed to pant.

"Good." He assured. He moved away from her slightly, trying to read her face. Just pure satiation. He decided to take the few good parts of this forced coupling and enjoy them, so he remained happily inside her, letting her spasms stroke him, and his ego, back to full health. "Guessin' you enjoyed it? What was that for you? Five? Six?"

It was seven, but she wasn't going to tell him that. "It was more than one anyway." She giggled.

Her happy laughter sounded out of place in the blackness. Spike cast a quick eye around. They seemed deeper into the darkness, further into the oblivion than before.

Buffy followed his eyes, noticed it too. "It's worse."

"I know."

She snuggled herself instinctively more deeply into his arms. "Keep touching me." She breathed when the fear immediately faded. Spike held her close as possible and they rolled onto their sides.

"Got you." He comforted.

"I mean- I guess it's better than no one, right?" She covered for her desire to be held and wrapped up in someone's strong arms.

"Sure." Spike covered as well. He didn't mind her closeness. It seemed fitting- the deeper into darkness they sank the deeper into each other they would be. The deeper the fire in the pit of his normally cold loins would burn.

"Don't stop." Buffy took his shoulders in her hands. The first tastes of him were addictive. He was like chocolate and shopping- if chocolate and shopping were evil. Once you had experienced them, you wanted a repeat as soon as possible.

"Glad you said it." Spike sighed, and gripped her around the waist, yanking her steadily up and over him. "Seems a shame to waste the bed, yeah?"

"Yeah." Buffy agreed, watching his pale ivory rod standing straight up again, waiting for attention. She had a fleeting thought that she was having the most perverted encounter in poor Riley's bed- and then it occurred to her that he'd taken Faith to this bed, too. This bed was just asking for it, apparently. She shook herself back to the task at hand- or rather, at crotch.

"Ah- not so quick, didn't you learn anything?" Spike teased as she tried to quickly mount him.

"You want to lick me? Now?" She wrinkled her nose. Eww. She was full of sticky wet stuff- Spike was sicker than she'd thought.

"I wouldn't mind actually, but not what I meant. I meant-" He reached forward and gently tweaked her lips and rolled her bead between thumb and forefinger- "go slower 'cause you gotta engage all the senses. Last time was taste. Now it's sight. Wanna watch this."

"You already know what I look like." She flushed, closing her legs slightly, suddenly embarrassed and aware of how much she was exposed.

Spike rolled his eyes. "You ever watch yourself do this?"

Buffy arched her eyebrow. "I'm not the mirror on the ceiling type."

"Since that'd be bloody pointless with vampires..." Spike rolled his eyes again. "No, just use your eyes. Watch yourself movin' on me. It's damn hot." Buffy didn't look convinced so he changed his tack. "Watch us, Slayer. We're a pretty contrast, Luv. You're all hot an' dark now. Pink turned scarlet, an' I'm still my nice creamy color. Want to see that comin' together?"

When he said it like that, she supposed she did. "Okay." She said thickly, tongue disobeying her mind's command not be so perverted just because her forcibly selected partner was. But curiosity and rampant lust were winning out anyway, so she gave in.

"Lean back. Open up for Spike." He coaxed in a soft, dark purr.

With another twitch of shyness, Buffy leaned back, and let him push her knees farther apart, craning her neck to see what all the fuss was about. One of his hands tightened on his shaft and he propelled it to her opening, then past it, tip rubbing her pearl in soft circles. They shared a moan, and a hesitant (on her part) smile.

"So lovely. Hate to admit it, but you are." Spike praised softly, and used two fingers to separate her lips fully, making her gasp. He stroked up and out, spreading her wider on each intrusion. Buffy closed her eyes and let herself get taken over by sensation. "No. No, don't close your eyes. Watch. Watch yourself openin' up on my hand." He urged.

Buffy looked, and even though it was her own body, she still felt like she was watching something way explicit she shouldn't see. Spike didn't have the same inhibitions. Well, it wasn't like they'd ever have to live through another encounter like this, she supposed she could try to play along. It was kind of hot, watching his fingers come out wetter and wetter each time, and it felt so damn _good_.

"You can play, too, Slayer." He nodded to his cock.

She paused, and then got it. If he was getting to tease her more and more open, she was in charge of controlling him. She couldn't imagine Riley ever allowing this kind of in depth play. And certainly not with his "little soldier". "Then you watch. I can do a magic trick." Buffy smirked and watched his eyes widen. Good. She loved to throw him off balance. He wasn't the only one could be bold, darn it. "Watch me make you disappear."

"Ohhhhh." He let out one long, sustained moan. God bless those muscles tonight, forget all the times he'd cursed her strength. She was a bloody sadist, taking him into her centimeter by centimeter in a long, slow, single thrust- all the way to the hilt, until his sparse dark hairs pressed hers and made a nest for the rosy spread of her strained lips. "Bloody good trick, Magician."

"For my next act, I need a volunteer from the audience." She leaned forward, looking at him buried inside. She slowly pulled her hips back up, supporting herself on her hands on his thighs.

"Pick me or I'll bite your little pussy, chip or not." Spike snarled, but neither of them thought of it as a threat. It was sheer sexual desperation. They both paused for a minute, the aggressive timbre of his tone had struck a chord. "C'mere." He put on hand on the middle of her back.

"Huh?"

"C'mere, Slayer." Spike kept his tone gruff, but it was softer. He sat partway up and she bent partway down. His lips grazed hers and then his teeth nibbled. The nibbling moved lower, turned to bites, scraping and sucking with blunt teeth.

"No fangs." She ordered breathlessly, letting her head tip back in spite of herself, showing the sweet, sensitive spots on her bare, sweating throat.

"Nope." Spike shook his head for a moment. "You like when a man doesn't hold back, don't you?" His bites left a trail of soft welts that vanished when the air hit them.

Buffy bounced her hips on him once, making him groan in pleasure, and shutting him up.

But of course, it was Spike. He refused to be shut up, under any circumstances, even being trapped in a cosmic bedroom with his nemesis in a compromising position didn't make him pipe down. "Like it rough, don't you?"

Buffy slammed her hips to his again and clawed one hand into his abs for support as she leaned further and further down over top of him, letting him leave hickeys, and now leaving some of her own.

Spike's eyes rolled back. Vamps like it rough. He didn't like it as rough as Angelus had preferred, he wasn't one to force- but then he was an Englishman, and Angelus was just some Irish lout sired by a common whore. He was a gentleman, though he'd deny it if you charged him with it. No, she wasn't violent. She was- aggressive. Oh God, yes, beautifully aggressive, claws, teeth, hips smashing into him, taking out her anger at the situation. And he bloody loved it. "Oh, that's right, Luv, that's it." He enthused, biting down on her silken shoulder, hard as dared without causing the chip to fire.

Buffy moaned and couldn't even cover it up.

"Knew you were darker than that sweet school girl image you show." Spike gloated. "Like a man with some aggression, don't you?"

"Shut up!" Buffy sat up, intending to get angry enough to leave him, get off and sit as far away as she could in the limited space. But his face didn't match his tone- he wasn't mocking. He wasn't even teasing. He looked- happy. Pleased. Dammit. She felt kind of pleased herself. It felt so good. It felt good- not having to worry. Not having to worry about whether or not she "broke" her boyfriend. She was always so passive in bed, so that she didn't risk injuring Riley- or his ego.

"I don't like it rough." She spat, looking furiously into his eyes. "I like- I like not having to hold back. And- and I like that you can make me feel something." She hadn't meant to let that part come out. Riley made her feel plenty, plenty of good things. Safe and close and admired. But could he leave a hickey? Could he slam into her so hard her insides quivered? No. Slayers were built to withstand impact, pressure, physical contact. She guessed that's why they were supposed to be alone. Who wants to spend life making love that hardly scratches the surface?

"Feel? Warm an' fuzzy feel?" Spike looked momentarily panicked.

"No. Jackass." And she refused to say more.

Spike gripped her arms hard suddenly, and she returned the embrace, forearms worming under his, her steel fingers wrapping around his elbows. "Not rough, then."

"No." She whispered, wondering if she was lying to herself now.

"Intense." He said flatly and watched her pretty emerald eyes light up before she could try to look cool and collected. He smirked and traced a thumb along her jaw. "Well, get goin', Slayer. This might be your only chance to ride a man like you want to- like you're able to. You know it feels good like that, my cock rubbin' all the way against your belly, fillin' you so tight. Stretching you, workin' you out- the only time it makes an impact, am I right?"

Buffy's exhausted mind cursed his devil tongue and her body praised it, focusing on his words, hips gliding rapidly, harder, and harder up him. It would have probably bruised Riley, but Spike just moaned and let out a sudden crow. "Bloody fantastic! That's right, Pet, don't have to hold back. This one time, you just show me what you can do."

"Are you just- going to- lay there?" Buffy challenged.

Spike's own eyes lit up, and he reached out, squeezing both her breasts, thumbs teasing the nipples harder than he previously had. He felt an answering tease on his cock. "No- I'm gonna let you cum- then I'm gonna pull you on your hands an' knees an' fuck you nice an' hard."

"I don't do- hands and knees." Buffy shook her head, gasping between phrases.

"Why?"

"Degrading to women. Willow told me."

"Willow told you? An' what does Buffy think?" Spike watched her struggle for an answer and gloated. "That's what I thought. Buffy doesn't know. Doesn't know that when I'm behind you I can kiss every inch of your back- that this-" he reached down and cupped his sack, "is gonna brush into you on every thrust, that you're going to get pounded until you see stars an' ask for a second ride on this merry-go-round."

Buffy's sex-soaked mind tried to untangle right and wrong and vanilla and kinky, but failed miserably. "Not fair." She shook her head finally. " 'Cause what would I get to do with you?"

"Anything you want." Spike answered, eyes burning like coals.

Riley would never offer that, because it would seem too unpredictable, and he didn't like unpredictable in bed, he said he had enough of it in his job. Parker? Not even worth thinking about. Angel- no, y'know what, not even him. He'd die for her, but say 'Go ahead and make me your little dirty fantasy snuggle puppy? No. Too undignified.

"Once in a lifetime offer, Slayer." Spike sang in a tempting tone, eyes mirthful, watching her fight a losing battle with herself.

"Lifetime? You're not even alive." She protested lamely.

"So even less then." He countered.

"God... Spike! What are we doing?" Buffy collapsed on his chest before she kissed him, long and hard, tongue dancing with his, and letting her hips jackhammer to him, loving every second of searing pleasure.

"Blame the house, Baby." He chuckled in her ear.

Buffy paused and licked her lips. "You'll be thanking the house by the time I'm done with you-" she said with a rare burst of confidence, "_Baby.__"_

* * *

><p>The entities were please, beyond pleased, and puzzled. Those two were better suited for the task of absorbing and regenerating the sexual energy than they could have imagined. No other couple, and they had played with several in the course of the night to try to find the right one, had acted like this. Such a connection. It must be the hate underneath the cloak of passion. After all, every strong emotion has to have an inverse. All that hatred seething underneath, fueling the fire they'd already begun, turning that dislike into something remarkably powerful. Oh yes. They were pleased.<p>

* * *

><p>Buffy found herself rolling across the bed with him, feeling him inside her. She was face down, face up, hand and knees, flat on her back, over him as he was sprawled on the mattress. The world was blurry and the words were almost gone. The blackness was deeper, and darker, and soon she'd be swallowed up in it.<p>

It didn't matter. As long as he never stopped making her feel like this.

"Promise me you'll never stop?" She gasped, watching the blurry outline of his body heaving over hers, feeling the deep spasms as he unleashed his cock inside her again.

Spike knew he should say no. No, because they had to stop, if he remembered rightly. _Sod __it. __Who __wants __to __remember __when __what__'__s __happening __right __now __is __so __much __better? _He found himself miraculously still hard, and his energy hadn't abated, although it was getting hazier and hazier to piece things together. Again, didn't matter. There was a beautiful, warm angel offering herself up to him with an insistent whimper.

"Don't worry, Slayer. I promise." He swore, and gathered her up in his arms, preparing to start keeping his vow immediately.

_To be continued..._


	4. Chapter 4

Uncontrollable

by Sweetprincipale

_Author's notes: Set during Season Four, basically an episode re-write of Where the Wild Things Are. For the sake of the piece, I played with some of the settings and events, but not the main feature of the plot._

_Short, smutty,Spuffy, with hints of deeper emotion. I needed a break from my big pieces. _

_Please read and review!_

_This might have some slow spots- I've got to cover parts of the plot from different angles, and there's a lot of tug of war between the house and the good guys, so there's some drawn out battles._

_Dedicated to BaDWolF89, Fangface Andrea,DLillith21, Vera Snape-Evans , jaimee01, Dreylin, Little Missy123, and ginar369_

_Direct quotes from songs or shows are obviously not mine, but owned by the talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part IV

"I am so glad to see you guys!" Willow and Tara stood up from the cement planter they had been resting on as Giles' car screeched to a halt.

"What did you find out?" Tara asked eagerly.

"Mrs. Holt is a nutcase." Xander answered with a snort. "She's taking the Good Book and making it not so good."

"Religious fanaticism." Giles grumbled, shaking his head furiously. "Stupid old crone. She took harmless teenage insecurities and emotions and turned them into big 'sins' in her mind. And if one of her charges was unfortunate enough to be caught doing more than just lusting, if they'd actually given 'in to temptation', guess where she locked them up?"

"Riley's room?" Willow winced.

"Bingo." Xander replied. "You're a smarty, Will."

"Not so much." Willow cast a long look back at the troubled dwelling place.

"We- we c-could kind of hear Buffy and Spike- g-giving into temptation themselves." Tara explained, blushing scarlet.

"It isn't their fault. It's the house." Anya said quickly.

"We figured that." Willow said drily.

"Then we'd better act quickly." Giles didn't want to contemplate what was going on in that room, or the fall out from it. "I take it you couldn't reach Riley?"

"No, we tried." Willow said regretfully.

"No matter. He probably has a lot to cope with if the creatures under the Lowell House are affected the same way the humans at the party were. Some demons are more susceptible to malevolent energy than others. Riley probably has his hands full."

"He isn't going to want to be here for this anyway." Anya was openly straining to hear noises from the house. "He'd get jealous. If he finds out about this he'll probably want to stake Spike even though he didn't have a choice about this whole thing."

"W-we can't let that happen." Tara surprised them by speaking up in a firm tone of voice. "You can't punish victims of sexual exploitation, male or female."

Willow beamed at her. "You're so sweet when you're being all socially aware."

"O-kay, and focus!" Xander clapped his hands together loudly. "We're doing a switcheroo here. Giles needs you magical types. We'll be the muscle. You go with him, and we'll stay here."

"Huh? Wait, what are we doing?" Willow demanded.

"We need to bind all the troubled spirits- poltergeists really, into one place. Right now they're disembodied and forming- well- this nexus of power." Giles clarified.

"Bringing the spirits to one place and holding them is kind of like shutting off the power." Anya explained. "We'd have some time to get in and get Buffy and Spike out."

"And without them to feed the beast, it rolls over and plays dead." Xander completed the explanation.

"Ladies, can we go to one of your dorm rooms? We'll need candles and an undisturbed place to work on the spell."

"Sure, our room is pretty close." Willow nodded, referring to the room she and Buffy shared. "Do you have what you need?"

"Stopped on the way and retrieved it." Giles held up a small battered volume from his pocket.

"Hey, we better come with you to get some weapons." Xander spoke up.

Anya looked at him with a puzzled shake of her head. "What good are weapons against disembodied spirits, Xander? They have no ass to kick."

"Not for spirits. For Spike and Buffy." He looked disgusted as he caught a low moan of pleasure, carried with the angry droning from the house. "They're not in their right minds. They're either going to be really grateful or really pissed off when we interrupt them. I'm preparing for the pissed off part."

"Maybe you're right." Anya considered. "They sound _really _happy."

"It's not really them. They're not themselves. They don't have any idea what they're doing..." Giles sighed, and motioned Willow to lead them to her room.

* * *

><p>"What are we doing now?" Buffy asked faintly.<p>

"Same as before." Spike answered in a whisper.

"Feels different. Nice different." She clarified, stroking his hair back. "You have curly hair."

"Sometimes." Spike rolled his eyes up. Yes, some of his greased platinum had gotten tousled-only natural, he supposed, considering what they'd been doing for hours. Small ringlets popped out at him here and there.

"Cute."

"You're cracked, Luv."

"It's okay." Buffy grinned lazily up at him. "It's cozy here. All dark. As long as you touch me..."

"I'm touchin' you, Slayer, can't you feel it?" Spike skimmed his hands firmly up and down her sides, resting his full weight on top of her.

"Mmm, very nice. Feel me?" She was about to scrape her hands over his back, claw at him again as she had so many times in the recent throes of pleasure. But no- she ran them up and down longingly, because everything was slow and gentle. Not loving. But liking. Yeah. They liked this, too. Long, slow strokes, heavy, tangling kisses and constant petting.

"Very nice, Slayer." He panted, even though he didn't need air. She was all cuddly now and it reminded him of the long daylight hours he and Dru had nothing to do but make love and explore each other. Sometimes is was dark and exciting, and more rarely, it was just this lovely blend of love making and holding each other. 'Specially since Prague, when she was so weak and he wouldn't touch her in a way that made her strain herself. When Angelus and Darla were nowhere around and he had his arms full of everything he ever wanted. "Missed this." He whispered, mostly to himself.

"Me, too." Angel used to hold her. A few times they'd spent the night, chastely, in his big bed, fully clothed, just curled together. Back when she believed he loved her and would never leave her again.

There was silence for a minute. Spike heard a soft sniffle. "Slayer?"

"I'm fine." She said quickly.

"I know you are." He said just as fast. "Slayers are made tough, made not to scare too easy. Not too feel too much so they don't get attached."

"I guess they made me wrong." SHe laughed bitterly.

"Yeah, well, they made me wrong, too, didn't they? Still love her. Still think about her- every bloody day." Spike's jaw hardened.

Green eyes sought his. "I do that, too. All the time. Even though- you know- I 'moved on'." She sighed.

"I personally think a little obsession is healthy." He laughed once, a strange, bittersweet sound in the darkness.

"Hurts less. Right now." Buffy admitted to herself. He felt a little like Angel. Cooler than her. Cooler than Riley. Hard and muscled and strong.

"That's somethin', right?"

"Yeah." Buffy stopped talking, afraid words would start to pour out if she didn't check them. Instead she kissed Spike with all the pent up longing she had- even if it wasn't meant for him. Surprisingly, it didn't feel too bad."

"One hell of a kisser, Slayer." Spike praised when she pulled back gasping when her lungs forced it.

Those hypnotic blue eyes. They were different from Angel's or Riley's, but they were twice as potent as either._ Has to be the spell._ Still, she heard herself whisper. "Could you just call me Buffy? Just- just for this round?"

"Are we getting to be friends then?" He teased and she nipped his jaw. "Ooh, yes we are."

"Spike! You know it's just the-"

"House. I know." _But that part's not true just now. I do miss Dru, and she misses- God knows why- Mr. Broody._ "Buffy." He tried it out. Bloody silly name. Didn't fit her, but he supposed that was how it should be. Took a bloke by surprise when you learned the thing the monsters were afraid of was a skinny, short, dumb blonde named _Buffy_, of all the possible stupid names.

She relaxed even further in his arms, and kissed him the way she wanted to kiss Angel. She knew she was fooling herself, but she didn't care anymore. Blame the house, blame the heartache, whatever. She missed him and she wanted to pretend for five minutes. _And maybe Spike deserves that, too._

Spike lunged into the kiss, so sweet, so alive, and delicious Slayer blood surrounding his tongue through thin pink tissues that he couldn't quite taste- but the tease, the "almost", was good enough for tonight.

"What'd she call you?" Buffy whispered in his ear, lips pressed softly, almost gently, to his lobe.

Spike swallowed. This was beyond the house. This was cruel torture, but- but Slayer didn't have it in her to hurt the heart like that. So he breathed a name he heard every day in his dreams, "My William. She always called me that- when we were alone." He murmured.

Buffy hadn't expected it to be so intimate. Such a simple little phrase and it opened up a whole world of Spike. He was softer, more human, loving. He had been. For her, one woman who had ruled his heart for so long. She might not respect him ever again, but right then, with a broken heart and blinding, uncontrolled, unwanted lust in both of them, she respected that one aspect of his life.

"My William." She whispered, not stumbling, in a flawless sweet caress. Maybe the house helped her, because she certainly didn't feel comfortable saying it.

"Buffy." He shook his head, awed at how those words just unlocked a little closet of relief inside him. Made him hurt less- if just for a second. It must've been the same for her, because e felt her surge around him, and he joined her, a tired, utterly spent climax out of sheer emotional exhaustion. Around them, the house quaked and the wind raged. They didn't even feel it.

"You're nothing like him." Buffy admitted in a heart aching whisper.

"And you're nothin' like her." Spike affirmed.

"But- thanks for trying."

"Better this way." Spike tried to sound careless, brave. "We can't have 'em back."

Their eyes locked. It was like the truth finally hit them. No, they wouldn't ever get them back. Not the way it had been, if it all.

"No. I guess not." Buffy swallowed, face starting to twist with near tears. Spike's hand came up automatically to cup her cheek. "I guess- this is what we've got left." She would not cry, she would not. It was all illusions, she wouldn't feel this, wouldn't remember this soon. "This is all we've got left." Her tone was stricken, desperate.

It was easy to give in. God knows, he'd done it before. Easy to lay down and die or drink yourself to a second approximation of death. Not gonna happen though. William the Bloody doesn't go down crying in his enemy's arms- even if they're full of soft, unwonted comfort. "This is it, then?"

"Well- we're never going to get them back. So yeah, Spike, this- or things like this- this is what we get." Buffy's voice was hardening in grief and anger.

"Alright, then." Spike squared his shoulders, letting himself push up, over her, no more passive cuddling. "We'd better make it good then, hadn't we?"

It was like both of them knew there would just be one more time, that the house was reaching critical mass. They stopped talking and gave in to the torrent of emotions, anger at loves lost and anger at unseen forces enslaving them. There needed to be an outlet for so much hurt, such epic lives cut short or drawn out too painfully long.

The bed groaned when they started the frenzied lapping and twisting, tying each other into a knot of passion. If this was all they had left, if this was the last time- it was going to be better than good. It was going to be _explosive._

* * *

><p>"Alright, give us five minutes, we'll book it." Xander swung a sword experimentally and almost stabbed Tara who knocked over an unlit candle. "Oops.<p>

Giles sighed. "Yes, just go. Before you burn down our calling triad or skewer poor Tara."

"Good luck with the nasty tying up." Xander nodded.

Willow hugged him swiftly. "You be careful. We'll bind the spirits long enough for you to get Buffy out."

"How much time will you buy us?" He patted her back.

Tara spoke up, most comfortable where magic was involved. She sounded confident as she explained, "Could be tricky, we're calling upon the communal spirit of a certain time and place."

Xander nodded and Anya looked resigned to her fate as she took hold of some of the assortment of weapons. "Right. Well- we'll try to move fast. Let's go."

"And let us start." Giles pushed glasses more firmly on his nose as Willow took her seat. He began to chant.

* * *

><p>"The grids are good. I'm going up." Riley, sweaty, grimy, and really annoyed by now, patted Graham's shoulder and then swung himself up the ladder. "I'll report in as soon as I can." He called to the soldiers and scientists he was leaving behind.<p>

"Be careful. The readings are completely unsteady. It's like- like a supernova. Massive amounts of energy with no physical manifestations for a long time and then sharp peaks. Something is about to erupt, end, either bad or good. We just can't tell." A lab technician voiced his concerns.

"Well, I guess I'm not learning anything sitting here." Riley said with simple bravery. "Don't worry about me. Just keep the cages shut, okay? I'm getting really tired of playing 'Whack-a-Demon'."

* * *

><p>Xander paused outside the Lowell House, where the black fog was now more of a light gray mist. He turned to Anya. "What do you feel?"<p>

Anya headed up the porch steps nervously and then peered in the window as she answered. "Sad, afraid of being without you, and a little hungry."

"I meant about the house." He tried not to shout at her.

"Oh. Still haunted." She shrugged.

"But the black stuff is going away. Isn't that a good sign?"

"It could be. Or it could mean that the house no longer needs barriers of protection since it's achieved its sinister purpose. Either way-" Anya tried the door knob and it clicked open, "we can get in."

Xander joined her when she stopped in the doorway. "Ahn, I thought you said -oh, man." His jaw dropped and he stared at the interior of the house. "It's like the botanical gardens with a dark side. On steroids. What the hell kind of plants are these?" The entire house was covered with steaming, dripping barbed vines, thick nets of green vegetation, all of it giving off of a wet, heady scent.

"Not normal plants. But then again- this isn't exactly normal."

"Well- let's see if we can get upstairs and-" Xander set one foot inside and a screaming apparition flew through him, slamming the door as it took flight, making him shriek and stumble backwards. "Or we could wait another couple minutes..."

"Yeah." Anya picked up the sword he'd nearly impaled himself on. "Let's do that."

* * *

><p>"The first reading is ended." Giles intoned. "There. That should have sent the first wave through, lessen the hostility."<p>

Tara nodded. " Now the summoning. Give me your hands. Form a circle." She, Willow, and Giles held hands, their eyes closed. In her sweet, low voice, Tara called in a soothing tone, "Children of the past, spirits of Lowell, be guided by our light. Come forth and be known to us."

There was a pause. Willow peeked one eye open. Giles and Tara were still sitting with their eyes closed, so she dutifully shut hers as well.

"Ho-how will we know when it works?" Giles finally asked. Tara's mouth opened, but stopped when a small noise was heard.

As one, they all opened their eyes and saw a circle of ghostly figures, children and young adults standing around them, expressions ranging from fear, anger, and absolute dejection on their faces.

"We'll know." Tara gulped eyes widening in fear she wished she didn't feel.

"I suppose we will..." Giles whispered, and the three looked around nervously.

* * *

><p>Riley stopped fighting his way through the maze of underground tunnels to the lab's back entrance as his radio crackled to life for the first time in hours. " This is Finn, does anyone copy?"<p>

"Finn, this is Major Dawson. We just got full normal readings. What's going on up there?"

"I haven't made it up yet, Sir. The house access points weren't responding, so I'm in the secondary passage."

"The house entrance should be clear, try to get in. I don't know how long this will last..."

"On it, Sir. Finn, out." Riley found a burst of energy and raced back from the direction he'd come. There was a shaft to the basement of Lowell House, and he was praying it would be open.

* * *

><p>Xander and Anya watched as the mist cleared completely and the house's door swung open as though pushed by an unseen hand. The couple exchanged a nervous look. "House is clean." Xander said with more confidence than he felt.<p>

"Let's go. You first." Anya replied.

Xander took a deep breath and walked in slowly, Anya following on his heels. They looked up and then at each other. "Clear might have been the wrong word." The entire staircase was still covered in the leafy, spiny vines and abnormal vegetation.

"No ghosties though. I guess the spell or whatever worked." Anya nodded, looking at the plant life as though it was about to reach out and make a grab for her.

"We need to work fast. Never know how long before the munchkins get homesick."

"Or the human battery conks out." Anya added.

They began to walk up the stairs fighting their way through the vines.

"Watch your fingers. Daddy's doing a little pruning." Xander wielded his machete at the vines, hacking their way through. With each blow, a shriveling shrieking hiss echoed in the house as the plant withered.

* * *

><p>"God, yes, Spike!" Buffy's shout echoed in the darkness.<p>

"Oh, fuck, Slayer." Spike rolled on his back, gasping, spent. "Where the bloody hell'd you learn that one? Be walkin' funny for days now."

"You said that was the last one, we had to make it good." Buffy laughed, pleased with her new found prowess. She flopped back beside him and ran a hand slowly over his welted, love-bitten shoulders. He tilted his head as she did so, dark brows drawing into a frown. "What?"

"Dunno. Feel... different." Spike felt a gnawing awareness at the back of his subconscious. "Do you feel anything different?"

Buffy lay back. A sense of something being not quite right- like really not quite right, was dawning on her. But it was like the sun slitting through blinds on a lazy Sunday morning- she just wanted to stay in bed and ignore it. "I don't know."

"You- you feel okay?"

"Beyond okay." She said honestly, automatically. In the midst of the growing sense of dread, they both managed a smile, and Buffy moved closer to Spike on the rumpled sheets. He reflexively held her close.

"Just lie still." He whispered.

"The dark- is getting lighter. The sun'll be up soon." Buffy whispered, placing her head over his unbeating heart with an exhausted sigh. "Back to work. My day job of pretending to be normal. What'll happen to you?"

Spike considered. There was nowhere to hide in this place. There was no _place_in this place. There would be no sun. But if there was, it wasn't like he could prevent it from rising. "Just lie still." He repeated and stroked her hair.

* * *

><p>Tara's soft voice was pleading. "We implore you ... be still." The specters watched her impassively.<p>

Giles tried. "Find it in your hearts to leave our friends passage."

"Transform your pain. Release your past. And ... uh ... get over it." Willow' mind blanked. Giles cast a nervous look at her and she shrugged apologetically.

* * *

><p>Riley couldn't get over the transformation of his house. "What the hell? This is like the Congo. What the hell kind of- owww!" A vine snaked out and slashed him across the arm. He leveled his rifle at it in a split second and blew a gaping hole in the greenery. "I eat my veggies. Veggies don't eat me." He muttered grimly.<p>

* * *

><p>Xander was also giving the vines what for, slashing and swinging, Anya working off his right flank. He heard a booming sound- from the basement area he'd guess. Great. Basements were always the creepiest places to begin with. "You okay?" He called over his shoulder.<p>

Anya looked up angrily, hacking at a vine. "I'm knee deep in weeds with attitudes, my shoulders hurt, I'm still hungry, still scared, and something just went 'boom' in the basement and any minute something is going to come up and kill us. I'm just dandy."

"We're almost there." Xander gritted his teeth and made one more frantic attack with his weapon. "Good. Here we go." He paused at Riley's door, almost scared to touch it. "What if they- what if they're drained?" He couldn't say "dead". Not dead.

Anya chewed her lip. "We won't know unless you open it, Xander." She whispered in a strained voice.

Xander nodded, and tried to reach for the knob. A sudden wind came up, and with a wail, Xander and Anya were blown backwards, halfway down the hall- into something solid and broad.

"Oh God! It's the icky thing from the basement and we're going to die!" Anya shrieked.

"I didn't know you thought I was icky." Riley's mildly amused voice surprised them.

"Riley! Thank God you're here!" Xander whirled around and considered hugging the soldier but decided it was too unmanly in a crisis. Plus the weapons they were both packing would cause premature death anyway.

The wind let out another mighty screech, and the trio toppled down the stairs, grasping at the railings, stabbed by thorns as they fell.

* * *

><p>"I heard something." Buffy sat up groggily.<p>

"Me, too." Spike squinted in the darkness as it faded to a pale, watery gray. "Looks like we're about to get out of here after all, one way or another."

Which was when the loudest shriek of all was heard, sounding like a freight train passing under the bed, hurtling them farther, and deeper into blackness than ever before.

Buffy's scream was lost in the howl of wind, and Spike's shout of shock went with it. This time she felt the bed "land", jerking to a halt, suspended in nothing.

"Oh my God. Oh God. Ohnoohnoohno." Buffy chanted in a sudden flash of panic. This time it was worse. This time- she was alone. She'd always been able to see Spike before, see him really well, like they alone were lit. Now- now there was nothing. No movement, no noise, no vision. Black. Inside of a coffin black. She let out a whimper and drew her knees to her chest. She was going to die alone, in the dark. Like all slayers, and she'd never even know what had happened, or why the house had victimized and used her. Used them both, but then separated them. Couldn't they even have the comfort of another presence if they were going to do- whatever they were going to do?

"They've bloody got to stop doin' shit like this." Spike's voice was gruff and annoyed in the darkness. He didn't know what hit him when Buffy launched herself on top of him. "Oi! Knees! Knees, you're an inch from bruisin' the trouser furniture! I know you like your boys rugged, Slayer, but that's a bit much."

"Shut up!" Buffy laughed with an edge of hysteria in her voice. "I thought- I thought they took you. I couldn't feel you or see you- not that I- not that I want to, but-"

"I'm dead. No breathin' sounds. Sorry." He allowed himself to embrace her in return, knowing it was bad now. Even with his superior sight, he couldn't even make out her outline- and she was literally on top of him. This was the thin edge of eternity. He'd always thought it would be a lot hotter and have more flames. Least there was no pain.

"C-can you see me?"

"Nope." Spike didn't mince words. "Looks like this is our stop, Slayer."

Well, if he was brave- she was going to be brave, too. "One hell of a ride." Buffy forced herself to match his even tone.

Spike coughed gently. "Guess- guess I could've done worse than take the last train outta the station with you."

Buffy smiled lopsidedly. "I _couldn__'__t _have done worse- not much anyway. But- you weren't so bad. You know. Just for this- this last part."

"Mutual."

They lay in silence. "We gonna go out without a fight?" Spike asked softly.

"No. When they give me something I can swing at, boy, I am gonna unleash a butt load of fight." Buffy glowered into the emptiness. "Until then... I thought I'd just lie here and- and save my energy."

"You do that." Spike allowed himself a smile. "Wore you out, did I?"

"In your dreams!"

"In _yours._ Oh, you'll be havin' naughty wet ones, Luv."

"You are such a pig."

"Got a cravin' for pork, have you?"

"Shut up!" Buffy hissed.

"Make me." Spike chuckled.

So she did- the only way she could think of.

* * *

><p>Willow hadn't realized how much fight people who weren't even technically ghosts could have. As an unearthly wind whipped her her hair around her face and the screeching in the dorm room reached a new high, she was pleasantly surprised to see that Tara, always so quick to belittle her own powers, was putting up just as much resistance as the ghostly guests.<p>

Tara strained her normally gentle voice into a shout. "Find here the serenity you seek!" The children and teens seemed to stare right through her, but she refused to be unnerved. She grasped Willow's hand more tightly, voice reaching a scream. "Find the peace you- oh!"

With a sudden sound like a thunderclap bursting inside the room, the apparitions were no longer just ringing them- two new forms were in the middle of their circle, dangling eerily a few inches above the table.

Willow yelped and even Giles looked taken aback. "Keep going!" He hissed at Tara.

But Tara was mesmerized by water slowly dripping from the spectral boy above them. "It's the boy from the bathtub." She whispered to Willow.

Willow forced herself to look- and sure enough, it was the pale, black haired young man they'd found struggling in the "baptism" in the bathroom.

"You recognize him? What about her?" Giles looked up as well.

The three stared at the two figures before them, also unpleasantly aware of the circle behind them getting tighter around the table, as if they were drawn to the beings as well.

"I didn't see her there." Tara whispered in awe.

The second figure was beautiful in spite of her gaunt appearance and the short, choppy look of her pale blonde hair, as if it has been haphazardly shorn and was just beginning to regrow. She wore a simple skirt and flowing shirt, something out of the sixties or seventies, and had bare feet. Outward features aside, that was not what was striking about her. It was the way she looked at the boy.

"She loves him." Willow whispered. No one could look so unblinkingly, unfailingly intensely into someone's eyes unless they were in love.

The boy jerked his head sharply towards Willow who clamped her lips shut as black, dead eyes burned into her for a second. Then the boy went back to holding the gaze of the girl.

With silent desperation the woman tried to take his hands- and met nothing. Their expressions didn't change. The intensity remained, more mournful, more urgent- and there was nothing they could do about it, nothing that seemed to ease their longing or give them release.

"She was the one. The one Mrs. Holt kept in confinement." Giles murmured with absolute certainty. "She kept them apart after they'd- erm- consummated their affections."

"That's so terrible." Willow whispered. "If you're right." The thunderclap sound repeated and filled the room with a sulfuric smell. "Okay, I'm sorry, he's right!"

Tara tried her entreaty again, in a more gentle, sympathetic voice, this time almost a comforting tone. "Find the serenity you seek. Find the peace you need to leave our friends safe passage. Find the -"

"Stop." Giles noticed the agitation in the air around them. The soothing words were not having the desired effect. "They cannot find peace. You cannot find the peace you seek, you were wronged and it was never made right." He addressed the couple in the center. Their eyes didn't waver from one another's but he pressed on. "It was terrible and we are sorry. But keeping another couple imprisoned is no way to get revenge, or seek justice!"

"I don't think you're getting through." Willow whispered nervously.

"I have to try." He hissed back from the corner of his mouth. "You don't wish others the same cruel fate, do you? Locked away..."

Willow's dresser suddenly picked up several inches from the floor and slammed back down. "You're pissing them off." She mumbled from the side of her thinned lips.

"They're listening, keep going." Tara urged.

"Or is it not to lock them away- but to force them together? Yes? In your old room, you've put them together? To share what you were deprived of?"

Tara gazed up at the floating couple. "Forcing another man and woman together won't let you two be together. Look, you- you still can't be together. B-but maybe if you could let go of the anger your presences could be together someplace else?"

Willow's dresser made a scuffling noise as it slid all the way up the wall and then dropped with a splintering crash. She winced. _Oh well, as long as we're keeping them here I guess we're buying Xander and Anya some time..._

* * *

><p>"We're wasting time. This isn't going to hold forever." Xander grunted as they made their way back through the vines for the second time.<p>

"Can you take two seconds to explain this?" Riley hadn't had time to ask for details, they'd been assaulted non stop since they literally bumped into each other.

"We have to get to your room. It's the spiritual and sexual frustration high point around here." Anya said bluntly.

"My room? My room? But I'm not frustrated!" Riley protested.

"No, this place-" Xander hacked at an offending vine, "was a home run by Mrs. Religion Gone Wrong. She used your room as a lock up for kids who she caught doing the wacky. And she tried to 'baptize' the lust out of them by nearly drowning them in your bathroom.

"So these vines are what? Symbolic of repression?"

"Probably." Anya wiped her sweaty brow. "But more likely just a defense so we can't get to Buffy and Spike. They're the energy source for this whole fiasco."

Riley stood stock still, stunned. When he could finally speak he shook his head and asked "Excuse me?"

"The house needs energy for something. Appease the spirits or whatever." Anya said dismissively.

"What do you mean, 'Spike and Buffy'?" He demanded, stalking closer.

Xander didn't like his tone or the way he approached his Anya. He took a breather from attacking the jungle in front of them and explained as best as he could. "It's not like they can help it. There's big mojo here, of the sexually bad kind. The house or the ghoulies in the house, I guess, need sexual energy and they're forcing it out of Buffy."

"What, with Spike?" Riley looked enraged.

"We think so. But- I mean- it could be in any number of ways. It's not necessarily the mattress tango."

"It probably is. If this damn wind would let up a little you could hear them moaning. But at least Buffy's alive and it sounds like she's happy." Anya said without thinking.

Xander jumped in. "Happy as in- alive and not in pain. Not happy as in she's willingly exchanging smoochies with Bleach Boy."

Riley's mind reeled in an agony of worry, fear, disgust, and disbelief. "No. No, she would never do that."

"Would your house ever randomly go for the tropical and deadly look? No, it's not her doing it. These apparitions are using whoever they can get." Xander placated.

"She wouldn't sleep with him!"

Anya sighed in exasperation."No, _Buffy_ wouldn't! He's trying to tell you- Buffy isn't in right now, leave a message and she'll get back to you when the angsty teenage spirits get out of her head."

Riley's mind refused to shift. "No-whatever the reason- this is not happening. She wouldn't, bothered by these ghost things or whatever. This is _not_ okay."

"Dude, I'm right there with you. Not okay is the understatement of the year." Xander patted his back. "You guys can get through it though. Not to bring up the badness of the past couple weeks, but- you and Faith-"

"I was tricked!"

"And she's being tricked too! By the atmosphere of this place, by apparitions with attitudes and no way to live out their frustrations."

Anya held up a hand. "They must be making some success in holding the spirits, guys! The wind is dying, come on!" She motioned them to head down the hall.

Riley numbly followed, tripping over vines and leaves. He came alert when he heard the noises from the end of the hall. Soft moans- male and female. "BUFFY!" He shouted in angry desperation and charged.

"Easy!" Xander warned.

"BUFFY! Buffy, listen to me!" Riley didn't pay attention to Xander- or to the huge thorny branch that swung wildly at him, knocking him flat with blood streaming from a cut over his eye.

"Calm down! We tried the kamikaze approach, all it does is piss off the shrubbery." Xander helped him up.

"You're okay with this?" Riley spat, pushing him off.

"No! A million miles of no-ness. But the alternative to Buffy making those noises is Buff being silent because she's - dead."

"In a way it's good Spike's super strong, like her. When the sex stops- we think the house goes poof." Anya took Riley's other arm and steadied him.

"And they die." Xander said desperately, staring into Riley's eyes. "If it had been someone without Buffy's strength and stamina- and I guess, yeah, I guess Spike's too, they would die and the house would implode or something."

"So what? I should be happy my girlfriend is fucking a vampire and has been for oh- what- the last three hours or more?" Riley cried in a fury.

"No! Be happy because if she hadn't been- she'd be dead." Xander said flatly.

"It's like survival and instinct. It's not her decision. But she wants to stay alive, so she does what she has to. She's the Slayer." Anya tried to help.

"So she shouldn't have to give in to anything. She's the Slayer! She fights monsters every night!"

"But you have to be able to hit them to fight them. At least you do if you're Buffy." Anya pointed out.

"She should have staked him. Let us have him back, where an HST S.O.B belongs." Riley shook off their hands and marched towards the door, fire in his eye.

"I hate to point this out, but he's under the spell or whatever we're calling it, too." Xander trotted after him.

"So he isn't enjoying it?" Riley jerked his head to the door where the moaning was crescendoing.

"Dude- look- it's so messed up, but don't do anything hasty. And remember- Buffy's gonna need you! She's probably going to be so upset when she realizes-"

"Spike... Yes, Spike, right there, right there again..." Buffy's voice interrupted Xander's placation and made the trio exchange a look.

"Oh yeah. She's _real _torn up about this." Riley made the last few steps to the door.

"Would you rather have her alive and with Spike or dead with you?" Anya called after him. Riley refused to answer.

* * *

><p>"It'd be so much nicer if they'd stop answering with the furniture." Willow muttered as her dresser seemed to be knocking for admittance against the wall.<p>

"They're here. That at least means they're listening. Well, perhaps." Giles said hopefully.

Tara was looking around at all the specters, no longer just focusing on the ill-fated lovers before them. "You will not end your pain this way. You need to make peace. Move on. That house holds nothing but sadness for you, why do you want to stay?"

"If that place is all that's holding you here, don't you want to leave it?" Willow joined in.

"Go. Find peace. Leave that place." Giles intoned, but it was too late. The red-cloth covered table flew out from under their joint hands and crashed into the door. The candles fell and guttered out, scattering wax and ashes everywhere as a final sweep of wind screamed through the room.

"What's happened?"Giles asked startled, looking around. "Surely I didn't cause-"

The room was empty.

"We lost them." Tara sighed.

"Maybe they realized what we were doing. Trying to get them to leave. Maybe they don't want to leave.

"They probably missed their energy feed from Buffy and Spike." Giles nodded. "I imagine they've returned. It might be misery, but it's all that they have, what gives them their life force, as it were. I should've realized. They may not want peace. They may want to exist more fully."

"They may want to leave- b-but maybe they can only make peace in that place?" Tara offered.

"For whatever reason, they need the house."

"Oh no. They're going back- they're going to run into Xander!" Willow cried, and as one, they rose and rushed to the door.

* * *

><p>Xander and Anya plowed after Riley, joining him at the doorway. His hand reached for the knob and the house made one final attempt to dissuade them as the spirits flooded back into their unhappy dwelling place.<p>

"XANDER!" Anya screamed as the vines came fully alive, and grabbed him, flinging him against the bathroom door- and the dragging him through it. Anya raced after him, only to find the door wouldn't open. "Riley! A little help h-" Anya never finished her request. Unseen figures yanked her from the door and propelled her back with enough force to send her flying over the landing railing and send her crashing to the floor below, fortunately landing partially on a sofa.

Riley grit his teeth but turned from the door. "Are you okay?" He shouted down.

"I'm fine! Get Xander! That's where she tried to drown the kids!" Anya yelled, scrambling up, not caring if her explanation was wholly accurate, just needing to get to her boyfriend.

Riley marched towards the bathroom door as Anya made her way up the stairs yet again, this time ignoring the vines and the howling tempest, even the pale, inhuman faces she saw watching her on every side.

"Oh my God. They were right." Riley choked down a scream of his own when he forced the bathroom door open. A ring of small children- and that's what made it seem so terrifying- were watching as a figure flailed and splashed in the tub. Xander.

"Shut up, repressed crybabies!" Anya spat and flung herself through the door to join Riley in rescuing the drowning man. A vine took its revenge and coiled around her as she reached the tile floor, plunging a sharp, thick thorn all the way through the center of her hand. "OW!" Anya yanked it out and dropped to her knees beside Riley. "You're not going to take him from me, you can poke me and throw me all you want!" She railed.

Xander, through blurry, water logged eyes, saw the ring of ghostly faces fade and be replaced by two humans he knew. Hands grabbed him and he broke the surface of the water with a gasping cough. Anya, battered and bloody, wrapped her arms around him.

"You're okay!" She half-sobbed. "I was so scared... But you're okay?"

"I am. Thanks." He hugged her back. "Come on. Before they try that little trick again."

"I am sick of this place, and these vines." Riley took his rifle from over his shoulder again. Vines writhed and grabbed, but he'd had enough. "I'm getting rid of them. As soon as it's clear- you run. Get Buffy out of there."

"Good plan." Xander coughed up more water and nodded.

Riley powered up his laser setting to an unsafe level, looked down the scope and blasted.

The hallway blazed and smoked, but there was a clear, if narrow, path down the center.

"BUFF! Hang on, we're coming!" Xander charged.

* * *

><p>"Cumming. God, yes, cumming, so close..." Buffy whispered, lying on top of him, her limbs thoroughly twined with his.<p>

"Me, too, Luv. Just send us over." He dug his hands into the soft roundness of her cheeks and held her squirming pussy on him as she let go, milking him, inarticulate cries filling the air.

"Ohh. Good." Buffy flattened to him, still spasming, gasping heavily against his chest as he sent shivers up and down her spine, cool fingers tracing from cheeks to hips in a litany of erotic, groping squeezes.

* * *

><p>Xander squeezed his eyes shut, prayed, and pulled. The door fell open and the howling ceased. The house was dead silent, and all the signs of strangeness were gone. No specters, no jungle with an attitude, no winds. I could've been a completely normal frat house. Well- except for the sight of really bad strangeness in front of him...<p>

* * *

><p>The bed fell again, this time- back to the room? Buffy and Spike gasped and sat halfway up with a jerk as the darkness fled and the oblivion lost its stranglehold. "Wh-what happened?" Buffy stuttered, blinking against the sudden light.<p>

"Beats the bloody hell out of- hey!" Spike grabbed for the covers and dragged them over himself and Buffy.

Buffy followed his pointed and annoyed gaze.

"Xander! Anya! Knock first!" She gasped in automatic embarrassment, clutching the sheets over her naked body.

"Oh we made plenty of noise to let you know we were coming." Xander looked away, really, really wishing that he hadn't just seen parts of Buffy when they were so close, and obviously so recently involved with pale, dead, and snarky.

"And so did _you_." Riley's voice was hard and cold as he stepped into the doorway, smoking laser still in hand. "You were probably too busy screwing Spike to hear your friends and boyfriend trying to rescue you." He said in frozen tones.

Reality smacked back into place with a sickening thud. The pair on the bed exchanged looks of mutual mortification.

"Oh no. Oh no..." Buffy shook her head to clear it. "We didn't."

"We did." Spike didn't sound pleased or smug, more shocked. "What the hell do you guys pipe into the bloody place?" Spike demanded of Riley. "What the fuck kind of acid trip do you have that can take out vampires and slayers an' make 'em think they're a million miles away on the edge of endless night?"

"What?" Riley cried, confused.

"Something made us- do that. I mean- we didn't want to- but- we were okay with it. Not that I'm okay with it now!" Buffy burbled in a panic.

"Looks like you're plenty okay with it." Riley looked at them, still lying against each other, turned away and stalked down the hall.

Xander and Anya looked embarrassed at the predicament, and sorry for Buffy. "You're alive and you're not hurt, right?" Xander asked.

"Not hurt. Alive. I'm fine." Buffy said quickly. In fact, she was better than fine. She was on fire, and fully relaxed and sexually satisfied for the first time in her life. She actually felt satisfied in multiple ways, not just sexually, for the first time in her life. More aware, more confident, and okay, really wigged, disgusted, and mad, but stronger somehow.

She began to remember pieces of it. The house. The overwhelming urges. The uncontrollable lust and instinctive reactions. But she hadn't let it beat her. She'd taken what could have been the most horrendous torture, and worked with Spike to get through it. Huh. Sometimes they didn't make a terrible team. A couple apocalypses and some random battles and now this weird head trip. He had skills. Oooh, all kinds of skills. No, that's not important. Focus on the other parts- not _his _parts...

Yeah, well, she was stronger. Not everyone can take their mortal enemy and make him scream your name and beg for more. Not everyone could be in something so weird and scary and make it less scary. _That's why I'm the Slayer._

Buffy straightened her spine and looked at her friends. "Really guys. I'm fine." Buffy gave them a small smile. She was majorly embarrassed and wished it hadn't happened- but it had and she'd lived through it. "I'll be okay."

"Uh... good. We'll let you put some clothes on." Xander said. He looked at them once more as he turned from the room. Covered in love bites and scratches and looking thoroughly debauched. "For the love of God, put some clothes on." He repeated in a choked voice and left the room.

* * *

><p>Spike and Buffy avoided looking at each other, finding their clothes shoved under pillows, on the floor, or jammed at the foot of the bed, and dragging them on hastily.<p>

"I can't believe it happened." Buffy whispered finally, nervously smoothing her shirt down over her ravished torso.

"Maybe it was a bad dream." Spike wished aloud. Buffy's hand shot out and smacked his head. "My hair!"

"You felt that. It wasn't a dream." She snapped.

"Yes, oh goody, I got Buffy juice all over me- for real." He sarcastically sniped.

"You weren't complaining."

"No, I was in a soddin' possessed state."

"Really? You sure sounded like yourself."

"Don't start with me, Slayer. You know I didn't want to do that, know I fuckin' hate you an' your goody two shoe gang."

Buffy whirled to face him, glaring. "So you hated that?"

"Yes!" He cried. Then considered. "Didn't you?" He asked cautiously.

"Of course I did! It was disgusting on so many levels." She winced. _I licked him, I kissed him-there. He licked me. He twisted me like a pretzel and... and no. He didn't "do" anything to me. The house did things to both of us, and what we did within that- it was mutual. I'm not going to say he did worse things than he did. He's bad enough, but I remember what he said. About Drusilla... about it being wrong, and he never did what Angelus did._ "I hate this." She sat heavily on the bed, head hanging, suddenly overwhelmed.

Spike watched her, jaw working. He hadn't meant to do those things with her, but he had. True, he didn't understand where those feeling came from or how it drove him, but he had taken the girl. No, he'd _asked_. He'd asked, he wasn't a monster, not a monster like that. He'd never do what had broken his beautiful, wicked ripe plum into so many shards.

"I'm not apologizin'." He croaked stiffly. "It wasn't what I- that is to say-" He winced around his own words. "Didn't want to. Sorry if you're all scarred for life, Slayer, an' don't think I won't have my share of night terrors from this little descent into madness, but I won't take the blame this time."

"You don't have to apologize. I know you didn't want to." She whispered tiredly.

Spike looked at the ceiling. Why were women so difficult? "Not that you weren't good." Buffy looked up at him in surprise, so wide eyed and with her pouty little mouth ajar. He almost smiled. "Well... jus' 'cause I hate your guts is no reason for me to lie, right?"

"Right." She said eagerly. "It was- terrible. But since we had to..."

"Exactly! Since we had to, there was no sense in lettin' the situation be bad as it could've been."

"No one got hurt. We're both alive. Alive as when we went in." Buffy nodded.

"So, overall, I'm not appalled as I'd have thought." He gave her a clumsy compliment.

"Yeah, yeah, you weren't completely appalling either." She grinned crookedly. Then the grin faded. "But it was still so wrong. I know we couldn't help it. But poor Riley. God... I feel so guilty." She did. She had, off and on through the hours that passed. Now without the lust addling her brain, the guilt was thick and dripped in an endless internal torrent in her mind.

Spike awkwardly coughed and moved to sit beside her on the bed. He personally thought Cardboard deserved it, and a helluva lot more, but the main thing he wanted out of this was to leave in once piece and not leave a woman crying after he'd been with her. The mathematics of his views on sex refused to allow it. If she hadn't wanted to, and they had, and she cried after- well- it just wasn't on. "Now, Slayer, listen to me, Luv."

She never got to listen to him at all. Riley burst back into the room, crossbow loaded and ready, aimed straight at Spike.

_To be concluded..._


	5. Chapter 5

Uncontrollable

by Sweetprincipale

_Author's notes: Set during Season Four, basically an episode re-write of Where the Wild Things Are. For the sake of the piece, I played with some of the settings and events, but not the main feature of the plot._

_Short, smutty,Spuffy, with hints of deeper emotion. I needed a break from my big pieces. _

_Please read and review!_

_Wordy- explanations and conclusions occur. _

_Dedicated to BaDWolF89, Fangface Andrea, DLillith21, Vera Snape-Evans ,Dreylin, Little MIssy 123, jaimee01, and ginar369_

_Direct quotes from songs or shows are obviously not mine, but owned by the talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part V

"Bloody hell!" Spike distanced himself from Buffy in a flash of black leather.

"Oh, you'll be in hell, bloody or not." Riley adjusted his aim, stalking forward with the crossbow tension ready to release.

"Riley! Stop!" Buffy leapt up, wiping her eyes hastily. "Baby, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"You didn't mean to what? You slept with Spike! _Spike_, Buffy, Hostile Seventeen!" Riley spat.

"Riley! Riley, whoa!" Xander shoved his way into the room, Anya behind him, and the footsteps of Giles, Willow, and Tara could be heard on the stairs.

"Hey, we already explained! She couldn't help it!" Anya cried.

"Neither one of them could help it!" Tara was suddenly in the doorway.

"You're defending Spike?" Riley lowered his bow when he turned to face Tara.

"Uh- not- not exactly. But-" Tara stumbled over the words.

"I don't need to be defended! I didn't do anything wrong! Didn't want to touch your girl, an' she didn't want to touch me, you get that through your head!"

"Then how come you two obviously did a lot of _touching_?" Riley shook his head and looked sick.

"Riley, please- can we talk about this?" Buffy reached out for him and he pushed her hand away.

"We can help explain, we saw the woman who used to run this house and the things she did created such a restless element-" Giles found himself cut off by Riley's shout.

"Just for once, could I talk to my girlfriend without her surrogate family shoving their noses in?"

"Well... really!" Giles looked highly offended.

"We love Buffy, too! We were scared to death!" Willow shouted.

"Who the hell almost got drowned and took on an army of psycho plants to get in here? Who the hell was working on this for the last couple hours and where the hell were you?" Xander demanded eyes sparking in protective rage.

"Stop it!" Buffy slammed her foot down, cracking a floorboard. "Stop it! I don't know what happened, but I know Spike didn't do anything worth getting dusted for. Not this time."

"See?" Spike crossed his arm and looked pointedly at Riley. "Told you so."

"Spike!" Buffy hissed.

"I'm goin'." Spike nodded and beat a hasty retreat, pushing his way past the crowd in the doorway. "Never comin' to a party here again, don't care what kind of booze you've got." He muttered. Once he was safely past the last member of the Scooby gang he paused, turned and sought Buffy's eyes.

Buffy tried to focus just on Riley, on calming him down and explaining, but her eyes did find Spike's. He opened his mouth and took one hand out of his pocket as though about to gesture with it, and then let is fall. He closed his mouth, but didn't need to say the words aloud anyway. Buffy understood. She didn't smile but tilted her chin in the merest nod, letting him know that-odd though it was- things were not worse between them. He nodded back, a hard fast bob, and slid like a shadow down the stairs.

"How long were we gone?" Buffy asked.

"A few hours." Anya answered.

"Gone?" Riley asked.

"The room- the bed left the room. I know it sounds weird, but believe me, okay? Please?"

Riley said nothing but Giles looked interested. "You appeared to be in another place?"

"No, not appeared to be, _were_. In a black hole type of a place. No floor, no light, no windows, no walls, nothing but this sound... roaring wind sound and blackness." She shivered. "We tried to get off the bed- there was no ground. Spike even lowered me over on a sheet and I didn't make it halfway down before I had to get pulled back up. If you fell in there- you could fall forever."

"Is that possible?" Xander asked in a nervous voice.

"Oh yeah. Entities that manifest into the physical world leave a pocket in the metaphysical world. All the emotions they represent create a bubble on the surface I guess. You got shoved in, they got shoved out." Anya explained easily. Everyone stared. "What? I was around for a thousand years. You learn stuff."

"And these- manifestations? Were they kinda- um- horny?" Buffy blushed to the roots of her hair and looked at her shoes, she couldn't bear to meet Giles or Riley's eyes. _They must think I'm such a slut. Oh God. I cheated on him. I didn't mean to, but I knew it was wrong and I didn't find a way to stop it. I'm a failure. I'm a total failure as a Slayer- I didn't even try more than once to find a way out. Giles must be so disappointed in me..._

But Giles was not. He firmly made his way past Riley and put his hands on Buffy's shoulders, making her look at him. "We love you and you're safe. You were acting out whatever impulses the apparitions fed you. They did something wrong, not you."

Buffy sniffed once, hard, suppressing her tears. "Thank you for understanding. I didn't- I should have found a way to get out, I know, but I just- I just couldn't even think straight and it was so hot and dark and it felt like we had to..."

Riley snorted. "So we're all okay with this? That's the deal?"

"No, we're not 'okay' with this. But we're not going to stand around and bash Buffy!" Willow snapped. "We know those things were feeding off of their sexual energy and they were basically giving them the lines to make them create more and more." She took Buffy's hand. "We think that you kept the house from going 'poof', by feeding the spirits for so long. And if you had stopped... well- it's like the lightbulb burning out. O-only you'd be the bulb and we're really glad you're not burned out." Willow squeezed her hand.

"Guys, this is so weird. All of this. You're going to have to explain it all some other time." Buffy laughed shakily. "I think Riley and I need to talk."

"Yeah, I think I said that." Riley snorted.

"Would you stop being a dick? You make me really want my powers back." Anya clenched her fists.

"I'm upset because the woman I love was sleeping with someone else - in my bed! I'm allowed to be upset."

"Of course you're allowed to be upset." Giles cut off any protests. "It's terribly upsetting. It affects everyone when someone is victimized. Some people-" He looked at Riley unblinkingly from over his gold rims, "mistakenly blame the victims. But you won't do that, will you?"

Riley took a deep breath. "I'm not blaming anyone. I just want to talk to my girlfriend alone. Okay?"

Heads nodded and with hugs, murmurs of reassurance, and promises of talking later, the group left.

* * *

><p>Riley looked at Buffy, standing tiredly against his dresser. "Did he hurt you?" He asked softly.<p>

"Nope." Buffy replied, starting to feel better. _He was just so upset, he just was worried and scared. It's going to be okay._ "Not at all." She pushed herself into his arms, pillowing her head on his chest. "I was so scared. I thought I'd never see you again. We thought our number was up." She mumbled into his warmth.

Riley held her tightly. "You're not hurt?"

Buffy looked up at him, trying to smile. "No. Not even a little." She pushed down images of his teeth mauling her sensitive breasts and hands digging into her spread thighs as his mouth went to work. She'd never been treated like that- but it hadn't hurt. No, not even a little...

"Why?"

Buffy tuned back in. "Why what?" She berated herself for zoning out.

"Why aren't you hurt?" Riley asked in a clipped voice.

"Huh?" Buffy didn't understand.

"You knew it was wrong. You said that. You said you knew it was wrong. So why did you let him do it? I mean, I'd expect you to put up a fight."

"I did! We both did! But we didn't fight each other! We weren't the ones calling the shots." She tried to explain, an undercurrent of confused anger prickling at her.

"So what happened?"

"Riley, I don't know how to explain, Honey, I just know what happened." Buffy took his hands in her own.

"Try to tell me. I need to know why." He insisted.

Buffy supposed she owed him that. If he'd been caught with Harmony she'd have wanted to stake her, too. And she'd have demanded an explanation, and it would have to be a damn good one. "You're right, we have to stop doing that thing where we don't talk until it's a big problem. It's not going to be easy but we can get though it, right?"

"Right." Riley answered, but privately, he didn't feel sure.

"Okay, well, first, we ended up getting trapped in the room. You left, and we all split up because there was major weirdness. Ghost people and scary grabby vines..."

"I saw that." Riley nodded and he felt slightly better. At least this part of the story matched what he knew.

"Willow was trying to open the door, because it was stuck. She did a door opening spell- but I guess the house got feisty just then, because we went flying into the darkness, and it was hot and murky and..." She trailed off. _Overwhelmingly sexually needy. But I don't want to put it like that._ "Anyway, we were on an island in the middle of a lake of blackness, and the bed was the island. We tried to get off, and when we couldn't we figured you would be here soon and we'd get out. So- that's what happened. You did come, and you got us out of wherever that was.

Riley looked around the room. Rumpled sheets trailed off the bed onto the floor, along with a pillow and one of Buffy's bobby pins and cigarette butt. "You're telling me you weren't in the room?You were in a mystical 'void'?"

"Yes. And you know it can happen, Anya said so." Buffy didn't like his tone.

"Then why is there a cigarette butt on the floor under the bed? Huh?"

"I don't know!" She didn't. If it had all been an illusion- if they'd been floating in the room the whole tome... She felt so stupid. But she hadn't known, had no way to check. The cigarette could've been tossed there before, or fallen with the bed. The point was- illusion or not, they'd been trapped and unable to change it.

"And we could hear you! Hear you- moaning and groaning and letting him.." Riley turned away from her.

"Are you saying I lied? Why would I lie about being stuck in your room or anywhere? So I can give into my deep, hidden passion for a really cocky jerk, who by the way has tried to kill me so often I've lost count, and who I can't even stand to be in the same room with for more than five minutes?" Her voice rose as her temper flared. "Are you nuts?"

"I'm starting to think I might be, if I let you make me believe that a bedroom could get sucked off the face of this earth so you guys can get horizontal."

Buffy swallowed angry tears and an angrier retort, something along the lines of how horizontal was not the way she was going to play anymore. Not now when she knew about diagonal, vertical, backwards and practically upside down. Damn, that vamp could do things... But things she'd never want to let him do, never want to do with him. It was Spike. Spike had been inside her and she knew she should feel cheap and dirty and bad- except that he'd made sure she didn't. He didn't use her. And even though the house was trying to make them puppets, they hadn't let it do that either. They might not have had much control, but they used whatever they had left.

"I know you're mad and I'm mad, too. I'm grossed out and I'm sorry, and I'm really wishing I could stick a stake in a ghost thingy and do some damage. But I can't. And you can't put this on me. You know how everyone was acting. We were running up here like rabbits when we both got interrupted. If we hadn't gotten separated, you'd have been in here with me and we'd never even have realized anything was wrong, we would have just thought we were having a really good time, for a really long time."

Riley looked at her, trying to feel his way through the statement, but unfortunately he chose to focus on the most negative aspect he could have picked. "So, since I wasn't available, you slept with whoever was handy?"

"Oh, my God! Riley! Listen to yourself!" Buffy cried.

"It's a fair question! I left you and said I'd meet you back up here, and when I finally come back I find you've been doing Spike!"

"It was out of my control! I didn't fully understand what I was doing, and I didn't have a choice. Any of that sound familiar? You and Faith?" Buffy winced in her frustration.

"No, not familiar at all! You didn't have to, you knew it was wrong. _I_was fooled- because she was in your body? Or did Spike suddenly look like me, too?" Riley asked sarcastically.

Buffy couldn't even speak for a minute. She'd never heard her sweetheart sound like this- like a jerk. "Don't do this. Don't make this get uglier than it already is." She hissed.

"What was it? Payback?" Riley asked, some of his old sweetness shining through as his head drooped. "I know you're still upset about what I did, but I didn't think you'd ever do it to me on purpose."

"Honey, no! No, I'm telling you, this wasn't my choice. Not who, not where, not if I wanted to. The only thing I had a choice about was if I was going to let it conquer me inside, not just outside."

"I want to believe you- but you don't have a mark on you, and I know he's chipped. I know, Buffy. I know you allowed it."

Aside from feeling like her heart was going to burst. she now felt like her brain might explode, too, from his density, and his half assed logic. " Just wait- how was it in my control? The power in this house made people do all kinds of weird stuff, violent and sexual stuff, but you think _I_ could magically get out of it when no one else could?" Her voice shook with unshed angry tears.

Riley shrugged. "Buffy, you're the Slayer, you should be able to fight through things like this."

She snapped. "And you're my boyfriend- you should be able to tell when the person you're making love to is an impostor when she acts nothing like me, no matter how she looks!"

"That's not fair." Riley protested.

"Okay, neither is what you just said. Do you think, really think I wanted to? I hated it!" Inside she admitted that yes, she hated what she'd done, but she didn't hate the good feelings it gave her. That it was nice, in a twisted, perverted way, to be able to talk to someone else with a broken heart, someone else who didn't want to move on, someone who knew what it was like to pretend to get over it. How weird that it turned out to be Spike. But he hurt just as bad. And he got it, what it was like to love someone, right or wrong. What had they said, 'It's okay to love someone who doesn't always treat you like they should"?

But she didn't deserve to be treated like _this_. "If you don't know enough about me by now, Riley Finn, to know that I would hate doing that, hate what happened..."

"It didn't _sound_ like you hated it, Buffy." He said bitterly. When he looked into her eyes, she could see he wasn't just angry anymore, he was near tears. "I was trying to get to you. Why didn't you answer us? We called to you."

Buffy's tears overflowed with painful suddenness. "Because it wasn't like we were in the room, I told you it was like being suspended in some black heart of the jungle, the bed was like an island in them middle of nothing! I don't know- I don't know why you don't believe me, why you want me to repeat this over and over!"

"Fine, make all the excuses you want. You were trapped in an alternate dimension. You couldn't hear me yelling for you, even though I could hear you banging a vampire on _my__bed_."

The tears ceased just as quickly as they came, anger shutting them off like a wrench to a valve. "Hey. I'm telling the truth. I am _not_ making excuses!" She angrily grabbed his hand. "Look at me! _Look__at__me!_ Why would I need an excuse?"

"Because when everything was over you'd have to admit that you slept with a soulless killer." He whispered.

Buffy felt strangled by her own breath. She couldn't believe this was happening. That this- this actually hurt worse and made her angrier than anything else she'd experienced in the long torturous night.

"And you slept with a souled killer who stole my body and used you to rape it. I'm not really seeing why I'd feel like I need an excuse." She whispered back brokenly.

Riley gaped, aghast. "I didn't- I never- there was no-rape, Buffy." He blanched at the thought, at the very word.

"She picked you, Riley, but she could have taken my body and let any guy she wanted violate it. If she hadn't thought she was going to be living in it, she probably would have. She probably would have done a lot of things I don't even want to think about." She closed her mind off to the images of what Faith would consider "fun" to put her through. If Faith'd thought Angelus was a catch- she couldn't imagine the scum she'd consider worth using for punishment.

"But the point is she didn't do that and I didn't do that to you. Or anyone. I was with my girlfriend as far as I knew, but you were with a _vampire_!"

"Faith swapped my body and let me get handed over to be imprisoned for life at best, murdered at worst. Spike's not seeming way worse right now, okay?" Buffy snapped, crossing her arms defensively.

"A vampire isn't seeming worse? What is _wrong_ with you?"

Something inside her fell apart. Too tired to do this anymore, and too tired of asking the same questions of herself, for years. Asking what was wrong with her for years of falling in love with the wrong ones, for running away, for not saving Jenny, for not protecting anyone and everyone and not being able to be a normal girl _or_ a normal Slayer.

"What is wrong with me?" Buffy sank onto the bed. "Oh, God, you know what? I don't know. I wish I knew the answer to everything, but I just don't. Just forget it. Forget everything you don't like, Riley. No more blaming or comparing. I've had it. _You_ had a situation,_I_ had a situation. We can fall apart or we can move on." Her eyes pleaded with him to see she was just too tired to fight every battle, especially ones like these, where she didn't know what was the right answer anymore. Her voice softened into something she hoped sounded like love, even though she realized now, more than ever, that this wasn't what love was like. "Riley, please, I know it takes time, but we can work through this, right? We both had circumstances we couldn't control."

When he looked at her, it was so easy to give in. He wanted to take her up in his arms and shield her from everything bad. But she wouldn't let him She wouldn't be shielded by anyone. He didn't think he could even comfort her. He didn't even think he could kiss her, not after she'd let Spike do that. She'd let him do so much more than a simple kiss.

His stomach heaved at the thought of a demon all over her. Inside her. And she had moaned a demon's name and asked for more. His mind blanked and hope fizzled. Whatever he was trying to say to save her pain backfired when his own pain reared to the front. "Maybe you couldn't control it, but you didn't have to enjoy it." He whispered.

He sounded so heartbroken that for a split second she understood his perspective. He felt betrayed. But dammit- so had she. Twice, by her own body. Her tone was hard and bitter, words scraping out that she didn't think she'd ever have to use in anger with him. "But it's okay that you enjoyed fucking Faith?"

He shook his head vehemently. "This again! I didn't - I didn't enjoy that!"

"You said you loved her! You told her you loved her when you were in bed! That's enjoying!"

"No, I told _you._ I didn't know it was her. I wasn't enjoying being with another woman, I was enjoying being with _you._ I was loving _you._"

"When I went into your room tonight, I didn't know it would turn into demon lust central. I didn't consciously _enjoy_ being with another man, I just had to do it, and my body had reactions. Like something controlled it, controlled me! Don't you think I wished it was you? That I felt bad, but I knew I wasn't getting out of it, knew that a force was driving me?" She explained desperately.

"Maybe you hated it, but you didn't hate what he was doing to you. I know. I -we all- heard you, Buffy. Moaning when you - when he made you- you know what." He looked ill, as though the thought of her finding pleasure with him was too much to bear. "I wish you hadn't heard it, or I wish it had been you with me, doing things. I know it sucks and you feel angry and upset. I am too. B-but would you rather I had been moaning because I was in pain? If some mystical force is moving you to do this, you aren't in control, Riley, and it could just as easily have made Spike hurt me. O-or what if I'd come up here with someone not chipped, chasing a vampire or- or maybe a couple of vamps? Or, God, what if it had been Adam?" Buffy shivered. What could she say? "At least Spike asked me if it was okay before we started? Aren't you glad I wasn't forced physically as well as metaphysically?" Everything sounded so wrong inside her head.

"I'm glad it wasn't any of those things." Riley shivered, too. Adam was one of the few monsters Buffy didn't seem stronger than. He would have hurt her, maybe not left her alive. Riley breathed a sigh of thankfulness that it was something harmless like Spike- but still... it was one thing for her not to be injured. It was another thing to softly moan his name when he was touching her, more than touching her. That was not forced. No, that was wanted. Nothing in the world could convince him that a spirit force had made his girlfriend have an orgasm with a murdering demon, even if it could have made her have sex with him.

"Riley? Riley? Aren't you glad this thing wasn't trying to hurt us worse, that Spike wasn't trying to hurt me?" She shook his arm slightly recapturing his wandering mind.

"No. I mean, I don't want you hurt, but I don't want you to have those feelings with him either." He explained, feeling selfish and un-understanding, but unable to rise above it.

"I'm sorry. It's done, I can't undo it." She could have stopped there, but something pushed her to get a little dig in. Maybe she knew he wasn't truly believing her, maybe she could sense his doubts. It just hurt, and she wanted him to know that she knew what he felt- and that he was making it worse. "And I really didn't want you to have had those feelings with Faith, but oh well, guess we get to work through it."

"Back to Faith! That wasn't even wrong! _This_ was!"

"Excuse me? It wasn't wrong? Riley it wasn't your fault- but it was wrong."

"Whatever. You don't get it, Buffy, you just don't get it. You knew you were sleeping with someone who wasn't me."

"Yeah- and you _didn__'__t._ You didn't even realize, not even a clue, that it wasn't me. Somehow, I don't think you come out all shiny in that scenario, Riley."

"I'm not apologizing for that anymore. I thought we agreed, it was in the past."

"I'm asking for the same chance! I know it's horrible, but we can put it behind us!"

Riley was silent for a moment. If she'd just admit she'd slipped up, maybe he could forgive it. It was her being perfect, the 'I'm a superhero, I always do the right thing' attitude he felt was masking the event. Maybe it wasn't all her fault, but the things she'd done- well, he still didn't think a woman would sound happy if the situation was what Buffy claimed. Forget the idea of the house being possessed. He'd never heard of a house making people decide it was a great idea to sleep with mortal enemies. "If you'd just say you were sorry instead of telling me all this other bull..."

Buffy leaped at the chance to end this ceaseless back and forth. "Honey, I already told you I'm sorry. But I'll say it again, I'm sorry!" Only, as she said it did she realize she was sorry, but she didn't have to apologize for anything, not to him.

"Wait- why am I apologizing? I had sex for hours with a guy I hate because of some stupid manifestation in the stupid hellmouthy house. I'm the victim!" She winced. She'd never wanted to think of herself like that, or the last four years would have been one long pity party. Even now, before he'd dragged that word from her, she had done her best not to feel that way. She couldn't let anything, anyone make her a victim, or she'd never be able to face the night and slaying again.

He scoffed openly. "Some victim. You didn't sound like a victim, and you just kept doing it..."

"I thought you understood. Giles said part of keeping it up was survival instinct. If we'd stopped, we could have died. And sounds like everyone in the house would have gone kablooie too." Riley's face remained mulish. "Are you- are you saying you'd prefer that?" She asked incredulously.

"I would prefer it not to have happened."

"It did, and we have to deal."

"Fine. I'll deal. You let him do you." He muttered.

"I did NOT LET _anything_! I just said, the choices were _die_ or _keep going_." She punched the mattress. "Riley- this is hard for me, too. Harder, if you're thinking about it. I need you to tell me I did what I had to. That I made the right choice. I got out alive. That you're not mad at me." She pleaded. And she was met with silence. Her soul shrank inside her. "Okay. Be mad. But at least- at least can't you admit I made the right choice? I stayed alive. Isn't that what matters?

"If you say so." Like you could die if you didn't have sex. Sorry, that might be what high school boys try to tell stupid girls, but it didn't work on grown ups.

Buffy was too stunned to speak for several seconds. "You would rather I had died."

"No. Of course not!

"Then tell me I did what I had to do. Don't- Don't make me feel more guilty than I already do."

"Well, at least you feel bad about it." He gave in.

"You want that for me?"

"You fucked Hostile 17 in my bed. Yeah. I want you to feel bad about it."

Buffy lunged up and off the bed, gathering odds and ends she'd left in his room during the week, speaking in quiet rage. "I'm going to go. Obviously a guy who'd rather I'd died during possession-o-rama than even give me a shred of dignity and comfort for having to - to have what happened happen to me- uggh." She lost her words and just shook her head. "What kind of jerk are you? If I had gotten dragged into an ally at gunpoint and this happened- I hope you would treat me better, because it's sort of the same thing." She reminded him softly, walking to the door.

"If you'd gotten dragged into an ally at gunpoint you'd have fought them off. You- You _let_ him. You can say whatever you want, but you let him. And you liked it." He didn't move from the place he'd stood during the whole time. He couldn't bear to sit on what he now viewed as a filthy bed.

Her voice dripped with sarcasm. "Yeah Riley. I let him. And I liked it. I don't feel violated or weirded out at all." She laughed bitterly, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. "And I'm _real _thrilled my boyfriend would rather have me dead instead of alive but 'damaged goods'."

"At least you would have died without being yet another vampire's sex toy." He spat. He knew it was mistake the second he'd said it. The quick succession of a punch to the nose, then the jaw, confirmed it. Blood spurted and bones cracked, and the floor rushed up to meet him. Looking up at her, he saw a golden girl weeping through a haze of his own blood.

"You know- at least Spike was nice about this. I hurt worse talking to you for twenty minutes than I did in the whole time he was with me. He apologized. He asked me if I was okay. He- he tried to make it good, even though he knew we were both not going to get out of it, so he could have made it bad as possible. I never thought I'd say this- but Spike, who's a complete and total asswipe jerky bastard soulless vampire- treated me better than my sweet, normal, nice guy boyfriend. It makes me think Riley- what the hell is the definition of monster?" She slung her bag over her shoulder, and stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

* * *

><p>Hiding from the early morning sun in the recesses of his blacked out car, Spike sat and smoked, waiting until she came out. She did. Blood on her hands- not her own. Whitebread's. Good for her. Not that he liked the girl, but even <em>he<em> knew you didn't treat women who'd just been through somethin' awful like that bastard was treatin' her. He couldn't count the hours he'd rocked Dru to sleep after she had one of her flashbacks to her 'turning'.

Well, she wasn't mucked about with, he could tell, not that the idiot would stand a chance against a powerful bird like her. He closed his eyes and sighed in weariness. He'd made sure she wasn't gettin' hassled by the jerk, not 'cause he cared mind you, but because - bloody hell, he was evil, he didn't have to have a reason! He could do what he liked, where he liked, when he liked, king of the open road if he wanted, striking terror into the hearts of-

"I see you, Spike. Open up!" Buffy's harsh voice startled the mighty "king of the open road" and he jumped like a nervous cat. "What are you doing here?" She demanded, pounding on the door again.

Spike pushed the door open and held his hands up to shoulder height in mock surrender, still dragging on his smoke. "Free country."

"Fine. Smoke yourself into a coma just south of the Initiative House's front lawn." She stomped off.

Looking up at the sun and then the low hanging branches, Spike groaned and did something stupid. He exited the car and easily caught up to her up easily to her. So I was, uh, was just seein' how it went, okay?"

Buffy let out a bitter, mirthless noise that might have passed for laughter. "Oh real peachy. He'd rather we exploded in a million little poltergeist chunks than have gotten his sheets dirty."

"He- you an' cardboard?" Spike trailed off, his hands nervously gliding through his disheveled hair. "He was upset, I know. An' he should be."

"Oh goody, _another_ lecture on why my boyfriend should be upset. I haven't had one of those in thirty seconds." She smiled with fake, saccharine enthusiasm.

"Lemme finish, you little bint. He should be plenty upset. You had somethin' bad happen to you. But he shouldn't be mad _at_ you"

Buffy paused, cocked her head, eyes turning from bitter to mildly relieved. "So it's not just me who thinks that way?" She asked hesitantly. Both of them came to stop in a dense clump of pines.

Spike shook his head. "You didn't want to." He looked guiltily away, and nervously puffed on another newly lit cigarette. "When I was in there with you- seemed like the good idea. Mos' natural thing in the world, but now, guess I - guess I did what I-" He couldn't talk anymore. His pale face went even paler. Buffy had never seen a vampire look like he might throw up before, but this one did.

"Hey! Hey, you didn't want to, either." Buffy hastily reminded him.

Spike looked grateful and relieved. "No." He said simply, because he couldn't think of anything more to say on how very "no" that idea had been to him.

"I'm not blaming you. Or- or saying you hurt me." She confided.

"Not that I wouldn't love to beat you to a pulp, Slayer, but not like that."

Buffy nodded, the merest ghost of a smile on her face, the first real one in hours. "I know. I got it."

"You- God, I cannot believe I'm bloody sayin' this- you're okay with me?" Spike asked, praying to all the demons in hell and angels in heaven that no one would ever hear about this nancy, poofy conversation.

"As okay as ever. Jerk."

"Bitch."

Buffy met his eyes. "You really didn't want to?"

"Nope."

Well- he'd already witnessed more of her intimate details, physical and mental, than any other guy in the world, so she might as well ask what was bugging her. In an uncertain voice, now looking just past him, "Can I ask you something?"

"Shoot." Spike said in a voice of barely concealed shock. She didn't ask to ask, she barged right in, shoutin', often as not.

Buffy's mind teemed with images of men leaving her, a one night stand, Riley's cheating. Even supernatural presences used her up and threw her away. "Was it because I'm not good at it?" She asked softly.

Spike choked and gagged on a throat full of smoke. "What?" He coughed

"You didn't want to- was it because I'm not-?" She gestured to her hips. "Good?"

"Hey! Hey, I didn't say I didn't absolutely fuckin' love the action we got up to, particularly when we broke Soldier Boy's mattress in the finale. I meant I didn't want to do it in the first place."

"But in the second place?" She asked in a small voice.

"You tryin to trick me?" He asked with a trace of anger and a lot of suspicion.

"No. No, I just wanted to know."

Dru'd just have to deal with it whenever they made up, sometime in the next century, he hoped. And you could love someone with all your unbeatin' heart, but still know the goods when you had 'em. "It was the best sex of my unlife, okay?" He admitted harshly, as if severely annoyed that he had to give her credit.

Buffy felt a large junk of self-doubt drop. Spike might be a worm, but he was a sexy worm, and he knew stuff. If he said she was good, well, there went that worry. She paused for a second and glared at him fiercely. "If you repeat this, I _will_ stake you." She cleared her throat. "Mine, too."

Spike felt flattered, even though he knew he wasn't up against much in the way of competition. It was her admitting it that made him swell with pride. "Sun's gettin' up." He turned back towards his car, and paused, not quite looking back over his shoulder, but sort of indicating he might want to. Dead tricky to look cool but sort of interested, had taken a soddin' long time to perfect. He waited.

Buffy strolled in his direction as though she'd been heading there all along. Being cool in high school- well, before vampires messed up her life- some of the tricks still paid off. They walked close, just not touching. Comfortable in a screwed up way.

Spike broke the silence. "That thing you do? When you squeeze inside? Brilliant."

"Hey, you have the silver tongue." She praised.

"Easy when you're so goddamn honey sweet." He stated with a hint of lust.

"Hmm, you're not so bad yourself." She smiled down at the grass. There was an awkward pause which she ended by crying out in a tone of wigged disbelief, "We just started talking about sex, and there were compliments involved!"

"Still under the house's influence, Slayer, I'm sure." He replied evenly. But he knew, at least on his part, it wasn't. She was good and she was sweet, and when he hadn't thought so much, just been with her, it had left him shaking inside like an adrenaline rush.

Buffy shrugged. It was more than the house. He was talented, not that she had lots to go on. But it had felt sooo good, when she was just feeling and not thinking.

Spike broke the silence this time. "I wonder if that's why it was so good- or if we're just that good together?" He asked in a carefully disinterested voice.

"Ha! You and me?" She scoffed loudly.

"Well, we've got the stamina an' the strength an' the flexibility, plus everything else super folk'd have that regular folks don't." He pointed out as nonchalantly as possible. By this time, they'd reached his car, and they halted.

"Yeah. Oh well, guess we'll never know." Buffy shrugged.

"Pity. But you're right. Anyway, I'll leave you to it. Hope things work with him. Since, you know, he's the love of your life." He smirked in a purposefully irritating way, knowing he was being a jerk just then and fairly pleased about it.

Buffy lost her casual attitude but couldn't even work up some anger about him baiting her. "No. He isn't. And I don't think I want things to work anymore. When the guy involved in the 'incident' is nicer than your boyfriend is about it, time to look at things differently."

"I thought you might've. Got some blood on your knuckles, Luv." He smirked.

"His. He's kicked to the curb. Broke his nose. Maybe his jaw."

Spike looked impressed and clapped theatrically. "Well alright, Slayer! Good on you. He should treat you better after goin' through that."

"I thought that." Buffy said with an angry toss of her hair. "But- but I didn't know for sure. I'm so confused. Was I making too big a deal, was he right... just wasn't good anymore." She rubbed her temples.

Spike paused, also confused. _Where the hell is this goin'? Oh, who cares?_ "What a bloke _ought_ to do is get some food and hard liquor into you, then put you in a nice soft bed until the world doesn't seem so buggered up."

"That sounds good. Really good." Buffy said hungrily. She looked at him, finding him just darting his eyes away. " I'm starving."

"I know! Takes it outta ya." They grinned ruefully.

Buffy cleared her throat. "Uh, there's a twenty four hour butcher's on highway 61, next to a Burger Matic. I don't know about you, but I could murder a double bacon cheese burger with extra tomatoes." She said longingly.

Spike swallowed. "Well, car's parked right here." No one moved. "Slayer?"

"Hmm?"

"What the hell are we doin'?"

"I don't know. Eating, talking, walking. Maybe driving?"

"Yeah. I s'pose we could do that." Spike opened his door, but made a point of not getting hers. He wasn't the bloody footman, jus' a casual- erm- thing. Somethin' or other.

Buffy rolled her eyes and jerked the passenger door open. "This has been a weird night."

"I'll never crash a frat party again as long as I unlive, tell you that for a start." Spike snorted, putting the ancient car into gear.

Buffy laughed and cautiously sat, surprised that the car didn't seem too hideous and was relatively human friendly. "Yeah. Something tells me I'll be staying away from sex-spook infested frats, too."

Spike nodded once and sighed. He fiddled with the radio as he pulled the car roughly onto the street with a crash of tires on curbs. Buffy jounced and stuck her tongue out him. _Mmm, pretty little tongue. An' nice bouncy handfuls up front. _He sighed. "Shame we'll never know if it was the house. Or if we're that good."

Buffy spoke with her new found confidence, and lot of guts she didn't really feel. "Oh, I'm that good."

Spike looked at her pityingly. "_Right_. So you say."

"I'll prove it." She dared him.

Spike managed to conceal his amazement by swerving carelessly across lanes. What in the world had come over the girl? They were off the property now, an' it wasn't the ghoulies or ghosties makin' her act like this. "I don't think you can exactly prove it, Pet."

She gave him a long, cool, gaze. "You afraid I'll show you up?"

"Ha, not too bloody likely."

"I need munchies first." She sounded calm. Inwardly however, _Oh. My. God. I have lost my itty bitty sleep deprived mind! Sex with Spike? On purpose? What's wrong with me, what am I doing? Oh, what does it matter? I can't have what I want, I might as well have what feels good and won't hurt me, right?_

"Agreed. Need at least two pints after last night." _What is this? What are we doing, what does this mean? Why do I bloody even care? Sod it, I suddenly miss the brainless, mindless black hole we were stuck in._

"So. Burgers and blood. But after that..." She trailed off. He could reject her. Oh man, she hadn't thought about that. What if he did? Rejected by Spike. Someone call the Suicide Hotline now, please...She held her breath.

"Burgers and blood. Then- I accept your challenge." He quirked his scarred eyebrow and managed to waggle it.

Buffy looked at him, he looked at her, and they both slowly shared a mischievous smile. It was never going to be a relationship, but like they'd said when trapped inside, it was what they had left- might as well make it good.

Buffy reluctantly leaned back against the seat. "Oh. Spike? Don't tell anyone?

Spike cast her a terrified look. "God forbid, Luv! Our little secret."

She nodded. "Good."

Spike cruised to the highway. Only night folk and truckers would be out this hour, so he sped. Looking over at the coppery little package beside him, he fiddled the radio station again before speaking. In an oh so nonchalant voice he tossed out, "Of course, if we are that good-we might not want to stop after one more little test..."

_Oh my God. I must be good. Or he's desperate. What the hell. So am I these days._ "Hmm" She pretended to consider. "You're probably right."

"You wanna wait til you feel better? Maybe you aren't thinking too clearly." Spike gave her an out. 'Cause he wasn't above taking advantage, but it'd end badly- as in scattered to the four winds badly, if he tried that with her.

Buffy gave him a grateful look. Spike as a- a _person_(wow, weird thought)- as a man interacting with a woman really was different than Spike as- _Spike_. What had he said- she didn't know what he was like in bed? That'd been true. She didn't know what he was like when he wanted to act like a non-jerk, either. "Know what Spike? It's been a rotten night. But the part with you- actually, in comparison, wasn't too bad at all."

A slow smile curved his ivory lips. "Mutual." He said briefly.

"I don't think the world will end if we have burgers and - and other things sometimes. Just- you know- sometimes." She clarified.

Silly girl. If you tempted him, he had to push. "I dunno. If you're that good, I don't want to share." He warned a kernel of seriousness under the banter.

Buffy laughed. "So not a big worry there. I don't think I like college boys anymore." She sighed sadly. Spike glanced at her sideways, and licked his lips once before speaking.

"Gotta thing for older men?"

She mimicked the sideways glance. "Apparently. But obviously not _you._Obviously." She answered quickly. And too emphatically. _Poop_. _So not good with the subtle._

"Well, hardly! We can't bloody stand each other."

"Totally hate your guts."

"Right. That's settled."

They drove in silence for another few minutes before Buffy started speaking as though they'd never paused, probably because she had been having variations of hypothetical conversations in the interim.

"Except you were really nice-ish tonight, so -um, thanks."

Spike kept his eyes on the dark windscreen. "No worries." He looked side to side and then bolted an exit ramp.

"Spike!"

"Liquor superstore off this road. Jus' hang on, I wanna get a bottle of Jack. Food, liquor, soft bed, that was Dr. Spike's prescription.

Buffy had to admit, at least aside from the alcohol, that it sounded like her kind of miracle cure. "Sounds awesome."

Spike turned the car down a narrow alley and then jerked into a parking spot. "Even that doesn't mean I like you, Slayer. Without this chip-"

"I'd stake your ass." Buffy interrupted placidly.

"Not before I bit yours! I mean- oh bloody hell." Stupidity was apparently sexually transmitted.

"I know what you meant." Buffy mumbled, suddenly blushing.

"Right, like I said-doesn't mean I like you."

"Understood." He didn't get out of the car. He seemed to be gripping the steering wheel like a life preserver, and she noticed her own hands had practically worn through the upholstery from digging in so hard. Maybe they didn't like each other, maybe they didn't hate each other, but they sure did know how to push the panic button around each other. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, trying to let go of all the bad stress of the day, of the night, of Riley.

It didn't make her forget at all. The aroma of smoke and leather and Spike himself overwhelmed her and all she could think of was the dark hours they'd worked their sad, strange blend of magic together, the most intensely delightful pleasure combined with mental trauma. It'd be nice to try the pleasure part without the angsty crap.

Spike watched her from the corner of his eye. She took a couple deep breaths and he enjoyed the image, her chest rising and falling. He could make his own do that if he wanted. Was nice to be with someone alive, to feel, smell, and hear all the things he missed in his undead state. Although right now, he wouldn't have traded the advanced olfactory senses for anything. He inhaled, inhaled her.

Glorious. Wetness. Hers. Wetness. His. A mixture that was pure power and sex in a pink package.

He still hadn't moved. Buffy leaned- just slightly. He did, too. With a half sigh she moved a few inches across the flat bench seat of the car and let herself try to get close.

His arm automatically lifted and miracle of miracles and horror of horrors, they were sort of embracing. His skin reverberated from her heat and his nostrils quivered like a starving dog's at her scent. Everything about her was intoxicating. _Bloody hell, I might not like her, but I could do this all day...better than her tryin' to kick my ass. 'Sides, she's not all self righteous just now. I could do with that a bit more often._

Buffy looked up at him, and quickly looked away. _What am I doing? This is stupid. Don't try to get comfy with him. Just get laid when you need to let off steam. Don't dwell on the nice things. Look how sweet and perfect Riley was- and look where that got you. _Her heart pained her for the loss of a man she cared so much about, and warned her not to ever try to move on again. She was like Spike. A one and only type. There couldn't be too much between people like that.

Spike interrupted her reverie with a lazy mumble. "You wanna see a movie after that burger?"

She blinked, taken aback. _Maybe I was wrong about what we could share... No, no it's not sharing, it's not a date. It's like a survivor meeting. Huh, better than listening to him complain and he normally never shuts up. Hm, he's not annoying me right now. That's of the major improvement goodness._

Spike cursed himself. _See a show? What's next, you gonna ask to carry her books? It's supposed to be about sex, nothin' more. Except- well- she isn't so bad underneath, I s'pose. She knows what it's like to get your world ripped away an' to keep pretendin' it's jus' fine. Still, ask her to a movie? Are you completely mental?_

"Erm, look, Slayer, about the movie-"

Buffy inserted herself more firmly under his arm and looked up at him with steady green eyes. "Sounds good. What's playing?"

He blinked, eyes lightening with a sudden smile. "Dunno. Doesn't matter. Doubt if I'll look at the screen much."

Buffy shook her head. "Pig."

"Bitch."

"Can we get that liquor now? If I'm going to hang out with you I might start needing alcohol."

"You jus' want to get to the food an' soft bed part."

Buffy considered. "Yeah. Maybe I do." She straightened up and pulled out from the shelter of his shoulder, fixing him with a steely gaze, a gaze of a woman who knows what she wants, and what she can have, and knows the difference. Above all, the gaze of a woman who accepts that some things are out of her control and she can deal with it. "You got a problem with that?"

_Ooh, feisty._ He did love that, it was what made Slayers worth the hunt. An' maybe worth spending time with. "Not the slightest." His smile took on new proportions, ever increasing as her own smile stretched to match.

"Good." She leaned up and kissed him hard, savoring the taste, and the feel of him- knowing that he would kiss her back just as hard, and it wouldn't hurt either of them.

Spike made one of his infamous sudden decisions. He pressed against her hard and started half lifting, half shoving her back.

"What? Hey!"

"Backseat. Works as good as a bed- sometimes."

"You're crazy. Or perverted! It's first thing in the morning in a shopping center, not midnight in lover's lane!"

"Not perverted- cravin' you. Can't help it." Spike admitted between hot, lashing kisses.

_Can't help it... no, some things you couldn't help. Sometimes they didn't turn out so bad. _

With a giggle and soft screech, Buffy fell into the back seat, her laughing, kissing companion joining her with a thud. "It's okay if you can't help it... it's time to give in." She gasped into his mouth as they tangled together and finally, happily, surrendered.

_This concludes our story. Hope you'll join us on the quest for more Spuffy in another piece sometime soon!_


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